Remember the energy analyst position I interviewed for a few months back but didn't get?

I see the same company is now advertising for a p/t copy editor job.

I applied.

They were paying VERY low for the analyst position, so I can only guess that this job will be no different.(I'm guessing less than $20 an hour, maybe $10 or $15 would be more like it.) Still, it's in my hometown. If it's less than 30 hours a week, I think I could still collect partial unemployment, and it would greatly extend my remaining benefits as well.

What's more, if they deduct taxes from my paycheck, it would help boost my employment "credits" should I continue to be unemployed moving forward. When they calculate your benefits amount, they take the highest average of the previous five quarters, or something like that. So generally, the more you make in any quarter, the better off you are. Except that they only count work where the employer deducts taxes from your paycheck; they DON't count freelance work at all. So in this context, W2 jobs are good, but 1099 jobs, where you pay your own taxes, are bad, becus you could work forever in a 1099 job and it won't matter one iota to the unemployment office. Why this distinction, I don't really know.

And of course, if i could get them to put me on their health plan, even though not a full-timer, that would be the ideal situation and would save me probably over $300 a month, depending on their premium. But it wold get me off COBRA, and the clock is ticking. I can't stay on COBRA forever, and it's expensive besides.

Well, all this is wild conjecture. I only just applied today.

But I spent quite a bit of time structuring my carefully-worded cover letter. It was a bit unconventional, but I have nothing to lose.

I even included a quote from The Economist magazine. Say what, you ask??

When I interviewed for the analyst job, the senior analyst who interviewed me asked me where I read my news and specifically asked if I read The Economist. He apparently holds it in high regard.

Now he may not be the person reviewing candidates for the copy editor job, but in a small company like this, senior level people often handle functions beyond their immediate job responsibilities. If he is, it might resonate with him.

To find that quote, I spent some time reading several stories in the magazine related to the Euro debt crisis. I included the quote when referencing the fact that I'm a news junkie and like to keep up on current events like the Arab Spring and Euro debt crisis, which a recent article in The Economist recently described as ......

That's about how I phrased it. It was a relatively small point in the larger context of my cover letter, but since they said in the ad that having an interest in world affairs would be helpful, I figured this would demonstrate it.

And once again, I saw the ad, not online, but in my local weekly paper. Cuts down on the competition.

Tomorrow will be busy but fun. Have to get an early start. I'm doing my part for International Ocean Conservancy Day by volunteering to pick up beach/ocean litter for a few hours at an Audubon beach preserve. Then I'm meeting my new friend, the out of work journalist, there for a picnic lunch on the beach. How cool is that? I'll take pictures!

I met this morning with the CFP/investment manager. While I was hoping that by this time, after 2 phone conversations and a detailed memo i sent him, that I could now reel him in and discuss a p/t position with him, it didn't really go that far. Yet, anyway. I did, however, succeed in securing a small first job from him involving my interviewing him and writing an article that will appear as an insert in a local newspaper.

We'll probably do the interview sometime next week. So it's a job, one that could to more if he gets any kind of positive response from it.

I sense he's being very cautious about spending money. Can't say I blame him. But I've spent quite a bit of time brainstorming with him how to get clients in the door already.

I'm hoping to hear from the local ad agency about the editing assignment I turned in to them yesterday. It would be great to have either one of these jobs work out to something regular, because are, as I said, very local. The $ manager's office is 5 minutes away and the ad agency is a 15-minute drive. I hate long commutes.

I had yet another unexpected home repair bill that I couldn't avoid. Two days ago, I noticed that the jet pump in my basement, which is hooked up to my outdoor-only water supply, had developed a slow leak.

I use the outdoor water quite a bit to water my veggie garden and potted plants. It draws water from my shallow well, unlike my drinking water, which is hooked up to a utility company and for which I pay a quarterly charge of about $36.

So anyway, I like the idea of having a free supply of water. So I called the plumber I've used before. They don't give free estimates, and their minimum service call is $116 for the first hour and $100 an hour after that. Whoa.

I decided to take a chance on someone new, a guy who specializes in well water pumps. I was a little guarded about doing so becus i noticed his website didn't show either his name or any address. To me, these are red flags that someone would prefer not to be found if there's a problem.

But anyway, he came over and fairly quickly found that the leak was coming from an old screw that had become so rusted it popped out, and that's where the water was leaking. But part of it was still inside, and he wasn't sure he could get it out. Well, he did in short order and replaced it with a new screw. Leak solved.

He said if this pump was used for my primary drinking water, he would recommend I get a new pump, becus while it's a great pump (a Gould) it's still quite old and probably won't last long. (It's already at least 16 years old. Average lifespan is probably half that.) But since it doesn't get a lot of use since it's just for outside water (never used all winter) he said just let it go. Here's hoping it'll last a few more years.

So the good news is, I saved myself a possible replacement of the pump, which would be in the $800 range. But the bad news is, i just paid someone $127 to change a screw.

In other news, I met my new friend yesterday at an Ikea near where she lives. We ended up going there cus they have cheap lunches. Well, she actually wasn't hungry, and it was such a nice day out, so we ended up talking and walking around the Ikea parking lot. For 3 hours! She suggested walking down to Long Wharf, but i didn't have my sneakers with me. I think we both liked each other and had a lot to talk about.

So we made plans to get together for a picnic (to save money on lunch out) at a mid-way town at an Audubon Center on the coast. It's a place I've been wanting to explore anyway. It's International Coastal Cleanup Week and this weekend they have planned beach cleanups up and down the coastline, including at this location. She didn't want to do a cleanup, but I have done them before and like to do so, so I'll get there early and spend an hour or so doing that and then meet her there afterwards. I've also suggested she bring her bike so we can bike around after lunch. We'll see. Not sure if she has a bike.

The $ manager who i was supposed to have a 2nd phone conversation with, who i mentioned in an earlier post was a no-show, well, i heard from him and he said he had a funeral to attend and could we talk tomorrow, so that's what we're doing. I've already sent him my 4-page memo with my thoughts/ideas on marketing his business, so the fact he wants to talk to me again is a good sign. Maybe I'll get some work out of this.

Got 3 more small assignments from my real estate client. 1 PR is done and will distribute tomorrow, but have to wait to talk with someone Monday to get started on the other 2 jobs: updating a bio and ghost-writing a second article, to be published in my state's home builder magazine.

This a.m. I spent several hours with my friend F. getting rid of the pile of brush and tree limbs in my driveway, the damage from Hurricane Irene. We made 4 trips to the landfill. He was a huge help. I gave him a hug and paid him in the form of two cucumbers from my garden, plus a $5 bill wedged in between them, to cover his gas. It's the best I could do.

I discovered the day before yesterday that the pump to my well (in the basement) has developed a slow leak. There was a wet spot on the concrete floor about three feet in diameter.

Oh no. I've heard that replacing a well pump is very expensive. I'm hoping it's just a repair, but who knows? While I'm hooked up to a private company's well water for inside the house, I do have my two outdoor faucets still hooked up to my own well. Which was one of the best moves I ever made.

I hooked up to a regional water company a number of years ago as my very shallow well (only 27 feet deep!) kept getting coliform issues. But I asked the contractor who did the plumbing to keep the well hooked up to the outdoor faucets, and I do use plenty of outdoor water for watering my garden and plants.

Plumbers are so enormously expensive. I found a place online in my area that specializes in well pumps, but i always feel suspicious when a business website doesn't provide its address. Or, if they provide an address, it's a PO box number. If you see that, you've got to be careful, because if problems should arise with the contractor, you would be unable to bring them to small claims court since you have to serve papers. The court won't deliver summons to a PO box number.

So I called this outfit, but will ask for their location first. I like to know who I'm doing business with. Without the address, I might as well be doing business with a door to door salesperson. Here one day, gone tomorrow.

I want to set up an appointment today for someone to look at the well pump.

This morning i have TWO job phone interviews, although I'm not expecting much from either one of them. Then I've got a screening for a Yale study on yoga/stress, then I'm meeting a new friend at Ikea. It will be a long day, and I'll likely be driving home in rush hour traffic. On the way to Yale, I'll stop at the landfill. (Trying to consolidate driving trips.)

I have plant lust.

There's a place on Main Street, close to home, that was having a plant sale this weekend. Every plant, $5. It's a private home and they have a lovely garden. They usually have a plant sale twice a year with much higher prices, but Hurricane Irene blew down their greenhouse and since they can't overwinter many of their extra plants, they were having this sale.

So I went to "look."

I ended up buying:

1. A sedge grass, which looks similar to a spider plant without the spiders.

2. A smoke bush. I've always wanted one of these. It has dark burgundy foliage and I can't wait to see what the blooms look like.

3. A dwarf magnolia, (Magnolia x Ann). Also always wanted a magnolia tree, and for $5, c'mon! Couldn't pass up. I read up on this variety when I got home. While I'm happy it's a dwarf (still gets about 10 feet high and as wide), it also apparently has a more shrubby habit, not tree-like. It's also apparently somewhat deer-resistant.

After some mental debate, I decided to plant it in the back yard tomorrow, in the area where I pulled out a huge amount of forsythia. It will have room to spread out there;in front, I'm trying to be careful and avoid planting anything that could shade out my vegetable garden.

I already planted the smoke bush out in front....hope it will get enough light where it is. And the sedge is in the ground as well, by the bird bath.

I really enjoyed browsing. There were any number of unusual and interesting native plants that I was sorely tempted to get, but $15 was enough to spend. Viburnum Barkwoodi, a ninebark, some fluorescent green sedum....geez, i may have to go back tomorrow...no, you can't...i just want to look....you better not, you know what'll happen....but i want to... (This is my mental dialogue with myself.)

I feel like I'm running out of space to plant things as it is. But I can always squeeze in one more thing.

Monday is shaping up to be a very busy day, starting with an 8:30 a.m. call from the CFP I spoke to last week. I guess I'll have to sell myself and provide intelligent commentary on his marketing collateral.

Then at 10 am I have to call an ad agency guy who responded via email to the resume I sent. He's looking for a PR writer who's strong in politics and government. Not sure how that's going to go. While it's not a specific strength, I can certainly handle it. He has a pretty impressive Linked In writeup and has worked for various state politicians, even a senator.

Later in the morning I have to head out to small city about a 50-minute drive to be screened for a new Yale study. They want to see if the regular practice of yoga reduces stress. So it's a 3-month commitment, yoga classes twice a week, and 2 blood tests, i think, for which they pay you $340. There is that long drive, but we'll see.

After that, I'll head to Ikea in same city to meet a new friend who I met through Craig's List. This will be our first meeting. I'll have a few hours to kill before she can meet me so I hope I don't get too bored.

So if we enjoy each other's company, the nice thing is that I could end up being in this city twice a week for those yoga classes, and this is where new friend lives. So it would be very conducive for us spending time together. (She's out of work, too. I just learned from her that she's NOT getting unemployment benefits...she quit the job, and she said she's living on her savings.)

That would freak me out. I'd like to learn more about that when I meet her. I'm wondering if she has some kind of game plan in mind. I know she has a grown daughter in RI; maybe she could live with her if she had to. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing she rents if she lives in the city.

I woke around 5 this morning to the sound of steady rain. A little while later, as I lay in bed, I heard a sudden popping sound outside. The transformer on the pole. I rolled over to look at the digital display on my radio, and it was dark.

I'd lost power again.

I called it in to the power company and spent the rest of the early a.m. formulating a plan should this outage last longer than a few hours. I found it too much of a pain to bring my food to multiple other locations, some not so close to home, and then have to retrieve it all later.

I had learned that just a single bag of ice could keep necessities cool enough for 24 hours when poured into the 2 refrigerator drawers. Plus in my cooler. That would be a heck of a lot easier than racing around town to friends' houses. Although the offer was made again to me.

Luckily, the neighborhood got power back in 2 hours.

I spent most of the morning at the computer. At 1 pm, it happened again. Pop! There goes the power! What' in tarnation is going on?

Power was restored a second time in about an hour. Gee whiz.

Nothing else terribly exciting to report, except that it's been raining steadily most of the day, and it's mighty cool. Chilly enough that I'm wearing my old blue sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Feels like fall!

Of course, now that I've formulated a plan to sell a chunk of mutual funds when they once more top the 12,000 mark, the Dow is refusing to cooperate. Another big plunge for the third consecutive day. Patience, Patient Saver. Your time will come.

I ate some more bruschetta for lunch.



Mmmm. I even like the word, "bruschetta." I think I'll name my next cat Bruschetta if it's a female. "Bruce" if it's a male.

I spent some time cutting up more of the debris left in my yard by Irene. Sawing with my little hand saw. Definitely fatiguing.

Here's a snapshot of yesterday's harvest.



I got a lot, but things are definitely winding down quickly. All will succumb to blight and powdery mildew, I'm afraid.

I spent several hours writing a detailed blog post about my garden harvest for a website that is all about anti-consumerism and sustainable lifestyles. It's basically all written except I want to wait another week or so to include the very last produce to come out of the garden. There are still a few more cucumbers and tomatoes and an acorn squash.

No, it wasn't ice cream or pickles I was thinking of, but I came across another blog suggesting you make a bruschetta to use up your homegrown tomatoes. Duh, why didn't I think of that? I always use them fresh in a salad, or freeze them for winter stews. Not very imaginative.

So I went to Shop Rite and found a rustic whole wheat loaf with a crusty exterior.

Came home and added the chopped up tomatoes to some homegrown basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and raw garlic. Slathered this on the toasted bread and topped with grated parmigiano reggiano cheese, broiled in the oven until melted. Voila! A yummy lunch. I ate 3 slices!

I also bought a piece of salmon, which I'll have for dinner tonight along with a homegrown acorn squash. You can see food is on my mind right now.

Someone left a note on an earlier blog I did on my revised budget, again asking something many others have commented on, namely, have you ever thought about using your taxable savings to pay off your mortgage. I'd considered doing that before, but wondered about the tax bill, and wondered about depleting my available nest egg should I ever need it for something while still out of work.

But it makes perfect sense, with a 6% interest rate. I can't refinance since I'm not working, plus the balance is smaller than most banks want to bother with.

So I decided recently to throw another chunk of money at it. My taxable savings are in two funds, one a large cap domestic fund and the other an international stock fund. I won't touch the international fund becaus it's way, way down. However, I'm showing a modest profit of a few hundred dollars now on the domestic fund (although given the many years I've had that fund, I'm not sure what that return works out to on an annual basis). But anyway.

When I see the Dow is over 12,000 again, I'll make my move, selling the $17K fund and putting that toward the mortgage. That will bring the balance down to $12k, which I should be able to pay off in a little over a year?

So that's the plan. It's exciting to me to be getting so close to paying the whole thing off. My main motivation is to create some breathing room in my monthly expenses. Eventually paying off the mortgage will lower my monthly expenses by about $600. Not a huge sum, but something. And after paying this year's tax bill, it should also lower future tax bills since that money won't be earning capital gains/dividends moving forward.

It's a beautiful day...



Because tonight at 7 pm I got my power back! (The treetops above are the view from my front door, and it was in this row of white pines where a weeping willow trunk struck and damaged a transformer on a pole along the road.

It was an interesting experience. Round about day 4 I settled into a routine of making daily trips to the middle school where they were giving out free bottled water and ice.

I poured the ice into the the 2 drawers inside my fridge as well as a small cooler. It really came in handy to keep sodas and drinks cool, along with a small number of single serve items that need refrigeration.

But I was eating very simply. Although I could go grocery shopping, my choices, without refrigeration, were quite limited to things I could consume in one sitting, and I certainly didn't want to incur bigger expenses by eating out.

So one night I had cold, canned soup for dinner. For lunch today I had peanut butter on bread. I ate a lot of salads using the cucumbers and tomatoes from my garden.

I lost a few eggs, butter spread and cheese, but that's about it. All my freezer food is at 2 locations now at a friend's and my mothers, and I'll retrieve it in the next few days.

While I have drinking water, my electric hot water heater was out, and so taking a cold shower was not something I attempted. I can't wait to take a shower, but now I have to wait a few hours (?) for the heater to warm the water up.

So the repair crew arrived on my street at 4 pm. I know because with my windows open, I'd been keeping an ear out for any loud trucks; each time I'd run to the window these past 6 days to see if it was a electric utility truck. This time it was.

Once power was restored, I could hear my well water pump, which feeds my outdoor faucets, refilling the tank, so I went outside to water two areas where I'd just planted grass seed right before Hurricane Irene. With no water since Sunday, the new grass was looking very dry.

So I yelled a few "thank-yous" to the crew working on the other side of the woods in front of my house. I talked to one of the guys; they came all the way from Colorado. Since they had to use their trucks of course, they drove and it took them 2.5 days just to get here!

I'm now also able to close my garage door. Although I live in a pretty safe town, it was a bit of a security issue to have to leave the door open, 24/7, including when I left the house. During the storm, I'd intentionally left the door open because it's wood and moisture has already found its way inside the panels and warped them. So it was stuck in the open position since my auto garage door opener uses electricity and while I should have been able to manually close the door, I couldn't.

I have a battery-powered short wave radio, so that was my entertainment at night once it got dark. There were a few local stations where the talk show hosts got together and had callers call in talking about storm-related stuff, although everyone here is focused on getting their power back. Some people still wont' get it for a few more days.

I was also getting daily Code Red Alerts from our town's selectmwoman, which was helpful in informing us where we could recharge cell phones, get a shower or pick up ice/water.

My job search was pretty much put on hold these past 6 days, so am anxious to get back to my usual routine, though it has been quite dead, in line with today's unemployment report which shows zero job growth for the month of August.

Here's some pix of tree damage in my yard:


I was very upset to discover my snowball hydrangea tree, in full bloom, had toppled over in the storm. It was right outside my sunroom, providing nice shade, and it's where I always hung my hummingbird feeder. Amazingly, I found the hummer feeder, undamaged and hung it up again from the fallen tree to make sure the hummers didn't go hungry.


Another view of the same tree.


Here are some large branches from a Tree of Paradise that fell rather close, about 15 feet away, from my sunroom.


Note the large tree limb that fell on my tool shed.

Here's another view:


Well, glad to be getting back to normal now.

Hi, friends.

Just a few MINUTES after my last post in the week hours of Sunday morning, I lost power.

Still out of power now and am at mom's house to check my email and do a few other things. Several trees and major limbs down in my yard, including a beautiful snowball hydrangea tree in full bloomo; it keeled over at its base. Also large tree of paradise limbs.

I've been hearing radio reports saying it may be a week before we get power back; at the peak, 700,000 people in Connecticut were without power; now i think it's down to about 450,000.

Sunday I spent the day bringing my refrigerator food to a neighbor's who still had power. Was going to bring the freezer food yesterday when she called to tell me she had also lost power. So I now have fridge and freezer food at 3 different locations. the food I had already brought to Helene's we gorged ourselves on yesterday so it wouldn't be wasted....some yogurt and cheese mainly.

Then today, Frank came over with his chainsaw to help me cut up the fallen tree limbs;as he was coming down my basement stairs, he grabbed something and cut his finger, which started bleeding profusely. We couldn't get it to stop bleeding so I drove him about 20 minutes to a neighboring town where there's a walk-in clinic. It was closed becus they have no power. We drove back to my house and after binding it up as best we could, he drove himself to the hospital. I had to bring my mom up to another town an hour away to do an art installation for an opening this weekend, but we ended up not going because from all accounts and what i heard on the radio, there are still a lot of road closings due to flooding.

I'm wondering if my $14 jug of real maple syrup will be no good to eat if not refrigerated?

I have a large tree limb that fell on my tool shed. It's still there, not sure if any damage.

It's been kind of stressful and aggravating. A lot of running around. Oh well. But I am fine.

I've been up for about an hour.

I was comfortably entering that half sleep stage and remember that Waldo was getting himself ensconced around my head on the pillow, when a clap of thunder stopped his purring and he jumped off the bed.

The thunder signaled the official arrival of Hurricane Irene, although it had been raining steadily all of Saturday.

I had checked in earlier with my dad and his girlfriend, and K. had told me that Ocean Gate, NJ was now under a mandatory evacuation and luckily, my dad agreed to go to K.'s for the night. My dad is just a two-block walk from the Tom's River, near where the river feeds into the Atlantic. He's very exposed; it's completely flat where he lives.

So my dad and his cat made it the 8 miles over to K.'s house in the town of Tom's River, which is a bi further inland, is not on the water and has had no mandatory evacuation. There they will join K. and her three pets. They're expecting winds of 60 to 80 mph.

Here in Connecticut, they're forecasting 45 to 65 mph winds with gusts to 75. It's been raining very, very hard and I just keep hoping no trees will land on the house or the wires. Remember, I just got my nice new vinyl siding. An outage in this kind of storm would likely last for many days with so many others out of power. There's a lot of food in my fridge and freezer. So far, as you can see, we still have power.

The bad weather will continue into Sunday and I think lessen in late afternoon/evening. I'll be relieved when daylight comes. Things always seem worse in the dark.

I decided to again revise my estimate of monthly expenses, monthly income and the shortfall I need to make up each month.

My unemployment benefits have changed recently, to the tune of about $19 less a week. And several of my monthly expenses have risen. I also know I left out a few things from my earlier estimate and want to make it as accurate as possible so I know what I'm dealing with.

There's very little wiggle room.

I decided to rank and separate my expenses by "tiers." My revised monthly bare bones expenses are $2,309.

My Tier 1 expenses...my top 3 expenses... account for nearly 80% of my bare minimum monthly expenses. They include:

1. Mortgage and property taxes: $1152
2. COBRA health insurance: $469
3. Food: $225

That's pretty amazing that I can shave all my other expenses to make up for just 20% of total monthly expenses.

Tier 2 expenses are what I consider mid-range expenses and are largely utility bills and other costs I can't eliminate entirely, but can control through careful usage. The values here are based on actual averages from last year. For bills that occur only once or twice a year, I calculated the monthly cost. They include:

4. Electric:$66
5. Heating oil: $65
6. Sewer (usage and loan): $50
7. Homeowners insurance (already increased deducitble to $5k): $56
8. Phone and Internet: $47
9. Gas for car (based on ONE monthly fill-up): $45
10. Car insurance: $35

My remaining essential expenses are much lower, though together, they do add up. They include:

11. 2 dental cleanings: $25
(Am considering giving up my favorite dentist becus at $152 a cleaning, he's not at all cheap.)
12. Water: $15
13. Haircuts (1 a month): $15
(I think I can skip an occasional month, but certainly need a haircut prior to any job interview becus it really looks bad when it gets too long)
14. Borough taxes: $14
15. Car tax: $7
16. Dump sticker: $7
17. Neurologist co-pay: $4
(I have to see this doc 1x a year absent any problems, just to renew my meds. I don't know why my insurance didn't make me pay the full amount of his fee since I haven't paid my deductible.)
18. Car maintenance: $2.50
(This only allows for 1 oil change. Not driving the car much.)
19. Cable TV: 0
(Cancelled this entirely last month.)
20. Wellness-type healthcare: 0
New healthcare changes mean I can get the following paid for 100%, without even a co-pay: mammogram, routine gyno, colonscopy, annual physical, flu shot...thank you Obama)

Total monthly essential expenses: $2309
Monthly net unemployment: $1954
Monthly shortfall: $355

Income
Goal: $150 a month from online surveys
I know if I really stay on top of it I can earn about $105 from Toluna and Pinecone; I just signed up for Global Test Market and plan to increase monthly survey income by $40.

That leaves $205 a month that I must make up through my freelance income, which can be very erratic and unpredictable, along with focus groups, academic studies, product testing or whatever I can find.

So, what haven't I included in the budget above?
1. Any healthcare beyond the free stuff listed above, like eyeglasses or coverage for the Lyme I recently treated.
2. Any additional car repairs
3. Home maintenance
4. Annual chimney or furnace cleanings (I had both done last year, so I hope and plan to skip it this winter.)
5. Mortgage prepayments
6. Retirement savings
7. Dining out
8. Entertainment
9. Netflix
10. Bird seed
11. Clothing

I do have plans to have lunch with a new friend next week, so already I am blowing my budget. That money will have to come from somewhere else.

See what I mean? Not much room for error.

I have a bit more gold/a diamond I can sell next week. There's the $200 I'm looking forward to from the Chase Freedom card reward. (Once I have that in hand, I'll cancel the card and open a Chase Sapphire card for $500 in retail gift cards at Wal-Mart.) I have about $270 now due me from freelance writing with another $333 worth of work to start in September. When I finish the nutrition study by year-end, that will be another $250 and I'll get a check in the mail for $40 this week from the product study I recently did. New freelance work is impossible to predict, that's why I really could use even a very p/t job for regular income. whatever tax refund I receive next spring, I will divide between my emergency fund and a mortgage prepayment.

I am reduced to thinking in very, very small terms.

Still with me?

Let's imagine a worst-case scenario. My unemployment benefits would run out in January 2012. It may go longer, but I can't get a straight answer from the Dept of Labor. Part of it depends on whether what the state considers "high" unemployment continues or not. Basically, if a lot of other CT residents share my misery, it works out better for me.

So then, again assuming worst case scenario, I run out unemployment and still don't have a job. I could live on my taxable, non-retirement savings (about $95K) for about 3.5 years.

By that time, I'd be around 56 years old, still far too young to think about collecting Social Security. However, I could tap into retirement funds with no penalty. Something I would NEVER do.

But also by that time, I should have my mortgage paid off!!!! That would greatly and significantly lower my monthly expenses. Just imagine the possibilities. Sigh.

I checked on my dad and his girlfriend on the Jersey shore, directly in the path of the hurricane. Of course I knew he wouldn't evacuate, and I was right. They called a mandatory evacuation in Cape May County, along with parts of Manhattan (down by Wall Street), Brooklyn, Staten Island and other low-lying areas.

I'm not especially looking forward to riding out this storm. Tomorrow I'll be putting chairs, benches, and maybe even the kayak in the garage, although that will be a feat since my car's in there too.

I made another chocolate zucchini quick bread tonight, along with a pitcher of homemade iced tea. Also cooked up and froze more tomatoes.

Went food shopping at Trader Joe's with my neighbor, though I didn't really need to go, but it was still good to get out of the house.

I mowed the lawn today and picked a ton of tomatoes, which was a good idea since when it rains hard, those tomatoes absorb all the extra moisture and end up cracking. So I'll have MORE tomatoes to cook up and freeze tomorrow. Also gave my neighbor a bunch of 'em.

I went with my neighbor to Ace Hardware because she wanted to buy a flashlight. She got the last one in the store, but had to spend $30 on it. I would've skipped it, but she bought it. Ya gotta wonder, don't people already have flashlights and various other supplies in the house? Like before a snowstorm, why is there always a run on snow shovels? It's not exactly something you use once and then throw away. It's a mystery to me.

The turkey that was in my yard yesterday left a calling card.

The boric acid I bought didn't seem to have much effect. I remembered that someone had suggested those Terro ant baits, but I delayed until I got an Ace $5 reward card in the mail.

The Terro seemed to work almost immediately! Certainly, by the very next day. It's been several days now, and no sign of the little buggers.



I saw a peacock in the yard today.He was rather nonchalantly preening but I think he caught sight of me at the front door.

Can you see his beady little head?



Yesterday, I saw a doe with her spotted fawn. They were ripping the leaves off a red-twigged dogwood out back. Amazing they haven't discovered the delectables growing outside the safety of the vegetable garden fence. The season is winding down so I'm not going to make a big effort to protect them.

Today was a no spend and no drive day.

Well, this is the first time I ever noticed this.

I was at my local Shop Rite and knew I wanted to buy some fruit. Usually prices drop fairly low (dare I say .99 a pound) in the dead of summer, but in recent weeks, prices seem to have climbed. I noticed nectarines and plums were a pricey $1.69 a pound.

Over in the small organic produce section, I noticed plums were $1.49 a pound. hmp. They were smaller, but so what? They were locally grown.

So, you wouldn't think organic prices could beat non-organic, but I think it pays to quickly check prices. I think we're all paying increased food costs partly due to rising fuel costs, so it makes sense that locally grown produce would be cheaper.

I know I had several coupons, but I was miffed, when double-checking the receipt at home, that the girl overlooked the two bags I brought into the store. I made a mental resolution to begin bringing 4 reusable bags inside the store with me and packing each one light so I can use all four. Up til now, I usually bring in one or two, but I want to recover the savings from the many times the cashier misses it.

I find check-out at the grocery store very challenging. There are so many things to watch and you want to make sure she rings up everything correctly without overcharging you. I often forget about checking the credit for the bags.


Do you sense a theme here? Luther's a boy who likes enclosed spaces. Desk drawers, inside cabinets, hampers, paper bags, you name it!

I cancelled at the last minute my planned attendance at a focus group this morning.

Why? Mainly because it's a 50-minute drive one-way, something I wouldn't normally think twice about, but now I'm thinking I can't afford to put unnecessary wear and tear on my car, not to mention the gas, unless I have good reason. It's a 12-year-old car.

This focus group wouldn't be paying me cash; they give you their products, supposedly between $50 and $100 worth of stuff. When I answered the Craig's List ad, it sounded kind of fun. When a woman contacted me via email, I asked what the products were and she never responded. It wasn't until she sent the attendance confirmation that I saw that it was a company doing its own product focus group, not a professional focus group outlet. I checked out the company's website and saw that they're a small nutritional supplement company. They only have about a dozen products, which are tinctures, ie, small, 2-ounce bottles of concentrate. You use a dropper to put the liquid in either hot or cold water, and drink it. They have different tinctures for prostate health, urinary tract health, heart health and so on.

It's not something I would normally waste...umm, spend my money on, and the more I thought about it, the less interested I became in going to their focus group, where they are trying out some new flavors.

So I sent them an email early this a.m. telling them I wouldn't be able to make it. I felt a little bad doing it, but I'm sure it happens all the time, and I think I need to conserve my resources for things that matter.

I feel I have a lot of longish driving trips already in my future. I reconnected with an old friend I'd lost touch with 10 years ago and we have tentative plans to get together next month. She's just a half hour away. But I also have lunch plans next week with a woman I've never met but connected with through her Craig's List ad. She's a writer like me, about my age and also looking for work. I'll be meeting her at the halfway point between our towns, about a 45-minute drive.

I also still have a number of long drives associated with my UConn nutrition study research project, for which I am getting paid.

So I think meeting up with friends on occasion is worth it, as are paying jobs, but to get 2 or 3 little bottles of a questionable health supplement? I don't think so.

Instead of going there today, I will do the following:
1. Reseed the lawn where I dug up two large shrubs.
2. Walgreen's, to use my rewards points
3. Shop Rite
4. Apply for GE job
5. Put recycling out at the curb.
6. Post Office, to return 2 items for a $15 refund.
7. Turn in the press release I wrote.


Luther in the laundry basket.

"I want you so incredibly much I can barely stand it," said the cat to the oblivious squirrel who was licking bricks.

Living extremely frugally can be monotonous. So today I welcomed a little variety in my normal routine.

Met with The Author for iced tea. We easily killed nearly 3 hours talking! The Author continues to get freelance jobs doing interior decorating, which she's come to really dislike, mostly because of her demanding clients.

It turns out she's working for a husband and wife in town. The husband was my boss at a job I held a few years ago. He and I got laid off at the same time, and his wife, who always made extremely good money negotiating leasing deals for commercial tenants, still wears the pants in that family. My author friend was telling me about a bathroom renovation she's doing for them. The vanity alone cost $2,700. The wife wants the best of everything. Money is no object. At the same time, she told me how stressed and unhappy the wife seems to be. And the husband, too. Kind of made me sad, thinking about my former boss who was always so kind to me, often bringing me back my favorite slushies or iced teas from Starbucks. He was a very kind and soft-spoken man. She, on the other hand, just made me grit my teeth. She often acted like I reported to her, not her husband. Grrr.

She travels constantly for her job, and even when I worked for her husband, it was clear he was the more loving and available parent to their three children.

Now the kids are nearly grown and getting into college. The youngest, a girl, has chosen to do missionary work in Africa. Talk about a statement!!! If that isn't a clear rejection of her parents' values and lifestyle, I don't know what is. I understand the wife is very upset about it. Much of Africa can be very unsafe, even for aid workers.

This afternoon I went down to do an easy product study that will result in a $40 check in the mail. On the way there, cognizant of gas prices, I stopped at the landfill since it was on the way. On the way home, I stopped at an Agway and got a haybale to so I can successfully reseed an area of my lawn where I dug up two large shrubs. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon. I also stopped at Stop & Shop for some sugar for the hummingbirds and milk for my breakfast cereal.

Tomorrow is some sort of taste test study. I wasn't positive I wanted to do it becus it's a 50-minute drive (1-way) and they don't pay cash, they give you product samples supposedly worth $5o to $100. I checked out their website. They are a nutritional supplement company that makes about a dozen different tinctures. It would be nice if they let us pick which ones we want, but I guess not. I'm curious to try this once, and if I don't like the gift bag, I just won't go back to this particular company.

I cant' believe the deer haven't been nibbling at the acorn squash, cucumber and tomato plants that have been creeping out of the fenced in garden. That's it behind the bird bath. You can see a bunch of stuff growing up a six-foot-high fence. Not that I'm complaining, it's just a rare day that deer don't traverse this land.

Today's weather was so nice....on the cool side (70s) for late summer, and NO humidity. It was beautiful.

I worked outside this afternoon again and finished digging up the 2nd of two spireas I wanted to get rid of. See the bench in the photo above? Behind it is a butterfly bush, and behind that are the 2 spireas that are coming out. I need to buy a bale of hay somewhere so I can plant grass seed. I hate to spend the money, but otherwise, I think the birds around here will just gobble up that seed.

I spoke to the APRN tonight about my Lyme/Not Lyme. I told her I was having intermittent hip pain and was wondering if it was Lyme, even though my blood test came back negative. She said that in her experience, Lyme most often affects the knees, not the hip, and that they are visibly red, hot and swollen. I can't say that's the case with my hip, so maybe it's just plain old arthritis, altho i don't usually have this kind of pain.

She suggested I try taking Alleve and Tylenol for the next few days and seeing if that helps, which I'll do. We'll touch base again on Friday.

I was actually surprised that she called me, and this is the office I was complaining about recently that delivers 9 to 5 patient care. I like this woman on a personal level, it's just the way the office is run that I don't like. I remember she seemed to take an interest when I was dating the neurologist a few years back. She kept asking about him years after I'd broken things off with him. And she asked this time if I'd gotten that job I was all excited about. So she is nice, and means well.

I boiled down two more big pots of homegrown tomatoes, then froze them for winter use.

I wrote a press release on a new 55+ community and interviewed three happy homeowners for some quotes to put in the release. If I don't hear back from any of the others I called by tomorrow, I think I'm still good to go. Cha ching.

I did absolutely nothing on the job front today. Not good.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will be busy with product testing and getting together with the Author.

Yesterday's Pickings

Can't say I did a whole lot today...it was another low-level energy day.

1. I continued working on digging up a fairly large shrub in my front yard, and was able to finish digging it out. I have a second one, another spirea, nearby that I also plan to dig out.Then it's pile the brush into the wheelbarrow for several trips to dump, then seed and water the area.

2. Made a nice summer salad of edamame, corn, black beans, red onion, fresh cherry tomatoes and salad dressing for dinner.

3. Read the Sunday paper, lounged around, drifted off for a bit.

Gosh, is that ALL I did???

Upcoming events this week:

My author is back from her vacation (North Carolina) and wants to get together this week. She's so fun to spend time with. We'll either walk or meet at the coffee shop.

May have to ferry my mother around tomorrow due to her car issues.

I have a press release to write tomorrow; it involves calling a few people. I could have done it over the weekend, but I just didn't feel like it! Bad me.

I have some product testing on Tuesday. Something that requires 20/20 vision and pays $40. I have no idea what the product is.

I have a taste testing of some new drink flavors on Wednesday. This will be at a new place I haven't been to. They don't pay you but supposedly give you "between $50 and $100 worth" of food items. We'll see. May not be worth it but I won't know til I try it once.

I am out of milk and need to hit Costco, as well as Walgreen to spend some reward dollars.

I have a lot of ravenous hummingbirds this year and am nearly out of sugar for their sugar water.


Yesterday's pickings with my boots.

Yes, it sure is pretty. I promptly used it to purchase another prepaid phone card, $20 for 700 minutes at Costco.

I found some phone cards that were even cheaper online, but I had never heard of the company (Nobel, I think it was) and when I asked the rep with an accent where he was from, he told me "Romania." Well, it immediately reminded me of that TV commercial for some phone service where the customer service reps are from...Romania. So I felt nervous and later found Costco did still carry the Verizon calling cards I've used before, but you just have to buy them online.

Now I will religiously carry this baby with me wherever I go. The rep on the phone said I only needed to spend $500 in 3 months to earn $200 back, not the $3,000 it indicates online. What's up with that? I guess I'll find out once I earn the points.

Once I earn my $200 bonus, I may just keep the card, not cancel it. Although you only earn the 5% on their designated categories, which change each quarter, AND you have to remember to "enroll" each quarter to get the 5%. Seems like a pain. And this quarter, it looks like they're pushing vacation charges cus their categories are gas, hotels and airlines. I can use it for gas, but that's about it. I'll only get 1% on all other charges. I guess it's ok, cus i really only got the card for the bonus.

I'm feeling motivated by people here like Lucky Robin who is so on top of her bills and money flow. So I hereby pledge to use my $200 bonus in this way:
1. $100 toward my depleted money market
2. $100 toward a mortgage prepayment

I think I'd like to treat my tax refund next year in the same manner.

So my current credit score is 778. It was updated about a week ago on Credit Karma. I'll keep checking there to wait and see how acquisition of this new card has or hasn't affected my score. I'm curious it it will do nothing at all, or perhaps bump it up a bit, because I've always been just a little credit light. In other words, not as many cards as the average person.

Today was the rare day when I didn't create a list of things to do. Still, I got some stuff done. I made good progress scraping off a 12" wide wall border in my spare bedroom. It was placed at about eye level, or a little higher, and now that it's off, the room seems so much more spacious. I think that wall border really served to stop your eye at that height and broke up the room, making it seem smaller. Once I'm finished with the wall border, I'll continue with the painting, using my totally free paint.

I also began the process of cutting back a large spirea before I dig it out. I divided another spirea and planted two more plants about 6 years ago, and now I regret it. One, because they are a pain to mow around, 2. Because they only look nice in spring in bloom and 3. Because black locust and trumpet vine was growing inside it and it was impossible for me to cut or dig them out, so I'm getting ride of all of it and will just plant grass there.

I'll continue working on it tomorrow. They're each about four feet wide and three feet high. With lots of branches.

I started watching a cable TV show on Hulu called I Survived. Ever catch it? I had to stop watching it after about 3 episodes and delete it from my queue because it was just too upsetting. It's about people who survived awful, life-threatening things, like an airplane crash, rape and bear attack. Told by the people themselves. Just too upsetting.

I read part of the Sunday paper that I get today and picked many more tomatoes today. I have enough to freeze a second batch for winter soups. Will do that tomorrow too.

Not much to report, just chugging along.

Yesterday I cooked up and froze a bunch of tomatoes from the garden, the first such batch this season. Seems kind of behind schedule, but the big tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. It's very satisfying to put up food I've grown myself for winter use. It feeds a strong self-sufficient drive in me.

Today I feel like taking a mental health day and doing something, but what? Was thinking possible bike ride, although I'm having pain in my pelvis area, where my right leg attaches to my torso. I don't know if it's related to my possible Lyme. Doc said I tested negative (after finding a tick attached to me) but she said I could still have Lyme and they just took the blood sample before the virus had taken hold. So I don't know, cus I don't usually get pain in that area. Seems odd.

I finished up the 3 weeks on antibiotics this past Thursday and as she told me, I called her to discuss. Office informed me she was on vacation and would be back Monday. They didn't bother to say, oh, so and so is taking over her patients, or do you want to talk to someone else. I could see if it was a cold or sore throat or something. This is the kind of thing that has me feeling very dissatisfied with my primary care doctor's office. They've done other things like this that just leaves the impression that they treat the practice of medicine in a rather casual way, like 9 to 5, which are their hours. No weekends, no evenings.

There was a time once before when I had Lyme and the doctor called me on a Friday afternoon; I wasn't home and he left a message saying, call me Monday. Well, he already knew I had Lyme. You'd think he might say I'll call your prescription in to your pharmacy so you can get started right away. Nope. I later spoke to him about it and he actually apologized.

But they still practice medicine over there like they're on auto-pilot. And if you want to just talk or ask a question regarding your issue, they tell you to schedule an appointment to come in (and spend another $30).

I've GOT to find another PCP. Been saying that for a while. The reason I've stayed so long is because they're literally 1 mile from home and I feel very comfortable with the 3 different practitioners there and I've been going there a long time.

So, I don't know about that bike ride.

On two occasions in the last week, I took advantage of recent stock market lows to buy more large cap stock funds. I had about $23K sitting in an IRA money market and wanted to move it into something that might possibly earn a decent return by the year 2100. I've been too afraid of checking my balances, though, and actually, I don't usually except at the end of each month to do my monthly investment report to self. Let's hope the Dow is somewhat recovered by then.

I've got to be one of the few remaining residents of the state of Connecticut to rely solely on my landline. I do this because, being out of work and trying to shave expenses, I gave up my prepaid cell phone last year.

So I was perturbed and frankly pissed to receive two new charges on the phone bill I received today:

1.Minimum Usage Charge: $2
2. Carrier Cost Recovery Fee: $2

The AT&T rep explained that because I made no long distance calls last month, I'm being charged $2. Say what???

AT&T is determined to make more money after losing customers left and right who prefer their cellphones. So someone in marketing came up with the idea of creating a new charge for a service people don't use. Brilliant! Give that person a raise!

The rep told me that the only way to avoid that charge (aside from making phone calls) is to sign up for a long distance plan which carries no monthly fee, but bills any long distance calls you make at .41 a minute, which is rather steep.

However, I remembered that I always use a prepaid calling card to make long distance calls from my landline (using a toll-free number to access it) so that's how I'll get around their stupid $2 minimum charge. I switched to the .41/minute plan.

The other charge is a federal fee they say they have no control over. Funny, I never paid it before.

Speaking of prepaid calling cards, I was very excited a few months back to find a very good card at a good price at Costco: It was a Verizon card for 700 minutes and the cost came out to 2.9 a minute. Now, Costco no longer carries the card.

UPDATE: I called Verizon, and he told me that yes, Costco carries their cards in every state except Alaska.

So then I called costco. While they don't carry them in the store anymore, I can still buy them online.

There's a 15% surcharge if you simply refill your existing card, so it's definitely better to buy a new card; shipping is free.

I'm probably one of the few remaining residents of Connecticut who still has a land line. That's the case because, being out of work and trying to shave expenses wherever I can, I gave up my prepaid cell phone and rely exclusively on my landline.

My usual bill for combined landline and DSL services is $44 a month. Today's bill was $49. Yeah, just a few dollars, but seems like everywhere I look, it's a few dollars more here, a few dollars more there. Meanwhile, I'm making quite a few dollars less, so yes, it does matter.

A side-by-side comparison of the new phone bill with last month's phone bill revealed two new line items I never paid before:
1. Minimum Usage Charge: $2
2. Carrier cost recovery fee $2

I talked to an AT&T rep who informed me that I have to pay the $2 minimum usage charge because I haven't made any long distance phone calls this month. Say what? You've created a new charge to make me pay for something I don't use?

The only way to get around it, he said, is for me to switch over to their long distance call plan. There is no monthly fee for the plan, but if I do make long distance calls, I'll be billed .41 a minute, which is pretty high. I gave up my cellphone, so initially I figured this wasn't a good option, but then I remembered how I always use prepaid calling cards to make my long distance calls. So I switched to the plan and shouldn't get charged .41/minute because I'll just use the calling cards I buy.

The other charge, the carrier cost recovery fee, is a federal fee they have no control over. This despite I never paid for this before.

I'm just pissed. AT&T is just determined to make money off people because it's rapidly losing money to cellphone carriers left and right. So they've come up with a creative plan to charge people for a service they don't use. Brilliant! Whoever thought of that should get a raise.

When you apply for various rewards credit cards, do you wait a certain interval between credit card applications? Will applying for too many cards too frequently affect your chances of getting approved?

Thanks, Joan of the Arch, for the cucumber-lime slushy recipe. I used the juice and pulp of two whole limes, probably way more than I needed, and just a teaspoon of Truvia, but it was way too tart, so had to add quite a bit of sugar, but yum, it certainly was very refreshing.



This morning I needed some kind of mental break, so I took a trip to a nearby garden I went to two summers ago. If you'd like to see the pix, visit my other blog

These days, I pay close attention to Craig's List help wanted ads, and in fact, I have six or seven categories for writer/editors in three different counties RSS-feeding onto My Yahoo home page.

From time to time, I see another job-seeker who has posted an ad touting their abilities/services in the help wanted section. Not a bad idea. I saw one the other day written by someone who described themselves as a journalist looking for work.

I decided to send them a quick note, partly because I was curious what another unemployed writer's experience has been in the job market.

She wrote back in a friendly way, then I wrote back, telling her about a job posting I saw at the start-up news site where I worked about five weeks last spring. It's in her home city.

Anyway, we've begun a nice dialogue back and forth. She had in fact applied to that job but heard nothing. I wrote her back with the personal emails of the owner and managing editor there. Nothing to lose in writing them directly, and there's a chance they just didn't see her resume amidst all the others they likely received.

So we're getting to know each other. We seem to have a lot in common. She has a strong journalism background; I dabbled in journalism for a few years out of college. We're about the same age, tho she's a little older. We both are frustrated with the job search, wish we could retire and want to do some travel. I'm flying solo, she's divorced, I think, and has two grown kids. She suggested meeting sometime.

This week, I exhausted my "regular" unemployment benefits. Here in CT, you then go into EB, or Emergency Benefits, for another 20 weeks. Thank God for that. I guess the total comes to 99 weeks. My 99-week mark would have normally been up now (mid-September is the 2-year anniversary of my layoff), but also thank god I've worked here and there, thereby extending my benefits quite a bit longer.

I worked at the Census Bureau from late April to early August, 2009 (3.5 months), probably averaging about 25 or 30 hours a week.

I worked another 3.5 months f/t at Prudential in Q4, 2010.

I worked 5 weeks f/t at the startup news website. And then there's been my freelance real estate writing all along.

I felt very bummed out that today I had to transfer $1500 from a taxable mutual fund to my checking account to cover expenses. It represents the very first time in nearly 2 years that I've had to do that. It's not that my normal expenses got out of hand; I only had to do it because I had a major capital improvement, the $13K vinyl siding job on my house. I had planned originally to take that entire amount out of taxable mutual funds, otherwise earmarked for retirement, but then thought it would be preferable not to have to sell mutual funds during such a volatile time if I didn't absolutely have to, so I paid for the bulk of the vinyl siding with about $12K I took from my checking account and my now completely depleted emergency fund, an online money market account I have with Dollar Savings Direct (an offshoot of Emigrant).

So I did greatly mitigate the damage and avoid the tax consequences, I think, that would come from selling mutual funds at a possible loss. I would love to replenish that emergency fund, of course, but that will be extremely slow going, given that I'm just barely paying for living expenses off of unemployment benefits and freelance work.

Absent a job, I can only look forward to next year's tax refund to put into the money market account.

I'm still hoping there's an outside chance I may still hear from that energy analyst job I interviewed for, but I will definitely (albeit, sadly) write it off completely if I don't hear anything by week's end.

I'm embarrassed to say I was turned down for that $11/hr transcriptionist editing job. I really felt it was beneath me and the pay about as low as i would go, but i would have done it because it would be somewhat regular work which could be a godsend since all my bills are "regular" as well. It's nice to earn $135 in 2 hours as I do for writing a press release, but it's not as great as it sounds if you only get those assignments on occasion.

Well, I can only hope there's something better for me waiting in the wings.

Wait a minute....Hope is not a strategy! One of my favorite sayings these days. It so perfectly reflects my take-the-bull-by-the-horns attitude toward the job search. Lately, it seems it's the bull that has the upper hand.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/10/how-i-turned-75-into-450/

Here's how someone else does it.....

Vindication!

I woke to the sound of a soft but steady rain, the kind of morning you'd just love to sleep in on. But nooooo, kitties must be fed, or before you know it, they're bounding on the bed, walking on my stomach, mewing plaintively and generally making themselves heard.

Here's a nice shot I took of how the house looks with its new siding, through the branches of some butterfly bush:



I've taken a gazillion shots of my house (sort of like a proud mom) but I especially like this one, as seen through the delicate foliage that enhances, but does not obscure.

Don't know if you've noticed the trend here, but just to give myself something new to think about, I'm going to try using only one-word headlines for my blog posts for a while. Just one word to sum everything up. So I'll have to choose wisely!

Here's what's "growing on" in my yard.



If you're wondering what this could be, you'll have to check out my other blog,

Not to be Debbie Downer here, but I am feeling really discouraged.

The main reason for this is that this was the week I expected to hear from that company where I interviewed for the energy analyst position. I had turned in the writing assignment the Thursday before, and I figured sometime this week they'd have reviewed candidates' writing and decided who to call back (or make an offer to).

I thought I had a pretty good shot at that job, and I allowed myself to visualize how things would work out with that job. I hate the waiting game, so on Wednesday I sent a brief and friendly email asking about the status of the job and whether I'm still a candidate.

The fact that I didn't get an answer is troubling to me. I'm guessing that they have either made an offer to someone else and are waiting for it to be finalized before notifying others they interviewed, or they are about ready to do a 2nd interview/make an offer and don't want to tell anyone anything until it's finalized.

It's just so discouraging. My life these days revolves around finding ways to make money. The jobs I've applied for include both full-time perm job I could live on as well as part-time or periodic gigs that will just help me get by until I find that f/t job.

A while back I applied to a tutoring company and only heard back from them yesterday, via email. Although I have no tutoring experience, they apparently have so far accepted my application, I'm guessing, based on lifetime experience as a writer/editor. So they would then contact me when a tutoring position in my area, in my field, opened up. Who knows when that might be. I'm curious to know how it would all work out since I have no tutoring experience and wouldn't know where to start. Do they supply materials? They haven't given me any idea. The ad says it's 7th grade through college and they require at least 1 year of teaching/tutoring experience, which I lack. You have to pass a background check and be willing to work some evenings/weekends. It pays decent, $24 to $27 an hour.

As for the p/t job editing transcriptions others have written from meetings, interviews or focus groups, they seemed happy with the first test they gave me. Then they asked me to do a second one, this time with a one-day deadline. It would have gotten my suspicions up, but this time they said they'd pay me. I turned that in and my contact said "so and so would be in touch with me." I guess/hope that means they want me for the job. It's a throwaway job to me ($11/hr) but until something better comes along, I'll do it.

I also haven't heard back from the online publishing company in the self-publish market. I spent a lot of time on their writing assignments and thought I did pretty well, although I found the Chicago Manual of Style book I borrowed from the library confusing when it came to citations/footnotes.

As it turns out, I think I've adapted fairly easily to giving up cable TV. I do enjoy watching episodes of a few of my favorite shows on Hulu,and it's just as good as watching them on TV. The advantages are that I can watch when I feel like it, and there are fewer commercials.

I finished painting one wall in the spare bedroom with the free paint samples I got from Glidden. I was quite surprised to see that "Tropicana Surf" is actually extremely close in color to the blue I chose for my office, to go with some wallpaper. The office is kind of an icy, cool blue while the blue in the bedroom is a paler shade of that. I have 2 more quarts, so I can continue painting, but first I have to scrape and soak off the rest of the foot-wide wall border I have in the bedroom, and to get it off just the one wall was very time-consuming. But it's got to come off because the colors don't really match the new blue paint.

I don't really know what I'm doing this weekend. I have nothing planned. I'd be tempted to do a bike ride, but I have to try to stay out of the sun while I'm still taking these antibiotics for Lyme. I think I have about 4 more days to go, but I doubt the low humidity of the past 2 days will last much longer.

I have like a gazillion cucumbers and am looking for someone to give them to.

My dad was up for a second surprise visit; this time, he was spending the night at my sister's. We hung out and chit-chatted, and he admired my new siding. Then he went to my sister's, and later I joined them for dinner at a local diner. First they wanted to go to a new, very nice restaurant in my town and I got all excited as I've never eaten there, but they were, once again, so crowded, they just wanted to go to the diner,which was quick and easy, cus my sister had to get back to her home before dark to put the chickens in the coop. The diner food wasn't very good....dried out chicken, carrots that I think came out of a can, an iceberg lettuce salad.... I'm so much happier when I can cook my own food!

I made a yummy cold lentil salad the other day. I don't really care for lentils much, but I know they are good for you. This was pretty tasty: lentils, chopped red onion, feta cheese, chopped green bell pepper and tomato and oil and vinegar.

I have so much produce from the garden that I'm on a race to eat and use them up every single day before they go bad. So far, nothing's gone bad, but some of those cucumbers might. I can only eat one whole cucumber a day. I considered putting a sign out on my mailbox, which is by the road, that says, "Free Cucumbers, Organic & Homegrown. Help yourself. See inside mailbox."

The mailbox is perfectly shaped to hold a bunch of cucumbers, although I'd have to wait until after the mail is delivered, around 2:30 pm.

That $13,000+ vinyl siding job pretty much emptied my emergency money market fund.

Not sure if I'll be able to squeak through August without having to cash out a few thousand from a mutual fund to pay bills. It's how I planned to pay for the vinyl siding to start with, but I found that I had just enough in my money market to cover it, combined with a few thousand from my checking account, and it seemed preferable to take it from there before selling part of a mutual fund, which has tax consequences.

I also decided the day after America's credit downgrading was a good time to buy heating oil, though at $3.29 a gallon, it still set me back $600.

My dad stopped by for another surprise visit, and he said my (half) brother might have some editing work for me. My brother and his new Chinese wife just had a baby. I'm not very close to them, although I would like to be. My brother is a biologist and has worked for various drug companies, and he's got something he needs to submit to the FDA which needs to read well. I don't have the science background, but depending on how technical it is, I could likely still clean it up.

So when my dad goes home tomorrow (spending the night at my sister's up here), he'll call with my brother's phone #. They just moved into a new house. Work often comes from places where you least expect it. I don't know, would it be wrong to charge my brother? I know he's making good money, and he knows I'm unemployed, so maybe not! Besides, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be coming out of his pocket.

I started scraping off the wall border on one wall of my spare bedroom, in preparation for painting. I need to repaint there due to some water damage from last winter's ice dams. I'm using paint I got for free, from a promotion Glidden was having. I picked out the color online and i tried to match the curtain I have in there. The color is called Tropicana Blue. I wasn't sure how good a match it would be; if it wasn't, I might also have to repaint the window trim, which is a darker teal.

I opened up the paint today and saw that it was in fact a very nice pale blue,nothing too bright. It's possible I could just get by repainting the one wall and not have to repaint the whole room. The walls are currently a pale yellow and could certainly use a redo. We'll see how ambitious I feel manana.

Today was a really nice weather day, but i sort of wasted it and didn't do too much. i was kind of distracted by things related to my job search and some other stuff

I turned in that editing of a transcription test to the company I told you about yesterday. She said I did great, and could I do another one, this time on a 1 day turnaround, and they would pay this time. So I said sure. I took a lot of time on the first one to make sure it looked decent, but i was wondering how long I should be spending on it, so i asked her how long something like that should take, and she said 30 to 45 minutes, but it should go faster as I do it more. I know I spent over an hour on it. Hmmm. $11 an hour. Better than nothing. She hasn't asked me for my Social Security # yet, and that would be a plus if they didn't issue a 1099. They seem to be a legit company, I checked them out online.

My author is on vacation in South Carolina starting today, so I may just miss the several times daily emails I get from her! I'll start up on the final third of the book editing in mid-September, if all goes according to schedule.

I have a product testing gig lined up in a few weeks, just an hour or so of time. The qualifying criteria was that you had to have 20/20 corrected vision and in generally good health. I have no idea what the product is!