I am oh-so-thrilled to 1) have finished my federal and state tax return and 2) have learned that, combined, I'll be getting back $4,100!!!!!!!

That's probably a record for me, made possible by a combination of factors, including having a much lower income from having been laid off, $900 in tax credits from installing energy-efficient windows, having a portion of my unemployment benefits be tax-free and the Make Work Pay tax credit.

Although my brokerage gives me free Turbo Tax each year, I prefer to do mine the old-fashioned way, using the IRS maze-like instructions ("Is the amount on Line 17 lower than the amount on Line 18? If so, skip to question 20; if not, fill out the worksheet on page 59....")and a sharpened pencil. I'll be mailing it off tomorrow; the state return i filed electronically, cus it was free.

I also entered an essay contest a local hearth and home type store is holding to give away a brand new fireplace installed, or, if you already have one, an updated fireplace, value up to $5,000.

The selection of the winner is March 5.

My house is unusual in that it doesn't have a fireplace and I always thought a stove or fireplace would go far in improving my ability to enjoy the first floor during the winter. As it stands now, I mostly live in the upstairs, save for time spent cooking and cleaning up in the kitchen.

I learned, with some sadness, that K. is moving out from my dad's house after 4 years there and buying her own home in the area. It stems from relationship issues they're having that have to do with my two half brothers. I think their relationship will continue afterwards, perhaps even improve, but things will be different, to be sure. I always had some peace of mind knowing they were together, should either one, both of whom have had their share of health problems, fall ill. Now, each will be on their own.

Home Cooking Challenge, MTD: 7 points!

I've had both my homeowners and car insurance policies with MetLife for 14 years now. In all that time, I've maintained a clean driving record and have never filed a claim on either policy. I figure they've made a lot of money off me for basically shuffling some papers around and issuing me a bill every now and then.


So, after paying for my car insurance last month, I was surprised to receive what looked like another bill from them today. It was a bill for a $5 "processing fee."

Now if you know anything about me, you know i can't stand nickel and dime processing fees. Most poor saps don't have the time or energy to challenge them, and so banks, credit card companies and yes, insurance companies, reap millions in petty fees, most with no legitimate reason.

Like most insurance companies, MetLife offers you a choice: you can either pay for the next 6 months of insurance in full, or you can pay in four smaller, equal installments. If you choose the installments, though, a $5 processing fee will be tacked on to each payment, effectively increasing your premium by $40 over the course of the year.

In other words, those people who can least afford it get victimized with additional fees.

But back to my case. Why, I wondered, were they trying to charge me an extra $5 when I paid my car insurance in full last month, as I have done for the past 14 years?

I got on the phone and argued with a customer service rep with a funny accent who didn't offer much insight but kept insisting I must pay the processing fee.

It was only after I escalated it to her supervisor that I got to the bottom of it. You see, I always take MetLife's safe driver discount course. Once you pass, you get 10% off your car insurance for 3 consecutive years. When those 3 years are up, you can repeat the exam and continue to enjoy the discount.

So when I got my bill for the car insurance last December, I quickly saw that the amount was higher than what I was used to paying, and I realized that was becus my 3 years of discounted insurance due to the safe driver course had passed. Since the bill wasn't due for another 4 weeks, I quickly called to order the safe driver course ($25), which is sold by another company that works with MetLife to administer the exam. The booklet came in the mail, I took the exam that day and mailed it in immediately. About a week later, I received a certificate in the mail saying I'd passed the course.

I then called Met Life to doublecheck what the amount of my premium would be after the safe driver discount was applied. She confirmed it for me, even though MetLife had increased my premium, and the premiums for all those who live in my state, despite my perfect driving record. (Grit teeth here.) I then said, is it ok if i mail in a copy of the certificate along with my payment for the car insurance? She said, do you have a fax machine, cus you can fax it. I said no, I don't have a fax machine. She said, OK, then you can mail it with your check.

It wasn't until speaking with MetLife's conflict resolution specialist today that I learned that the reason for the $5 processing fee was becus the safe driver certificate needs to go to one place for processing, while my payment for the insurance went to another location. That's why they assessed the $5 processing fee.

(She also gave me some baloney about my account having the option of installment payments checked off, despite my never having used that option, or being asked whether I wanted that option. I'm sure it's the software program's default option.)

I argued with the conflict resolution specialist further, becus fact is, when i spoke with the MetLife rep back in December, she didn't say it was necessary to mail the safe driver discount certificate to a different location. She said it was fine to mail it with my check.

So becus of the stink I raised and my threat to sever my relationship with them over a stupid $5 fee, the conflict resolution specialist said she'd remove the $5 processing fee.

I guess they figure that 90% of customers would never bother to dispute a $5 extra fee, and even if the 10% who do like me cause a big headache for the unfortunate rep being paid a low salary and who has to deal with them, the corporation is still making big profits on those who let it slide and continues to reward its upper echelon executives with fat bonuses, you know, those people who never have to deal with an angry customer/

That's corporate America for you. The kind of thing that burns me up. The whole paperwork thing was all automatically computer-generated, I'm sure, and a thinking human being didn't actually look at the situation to consider whether it was fair or correct to charge this customer a $5 fee, so i had to stress myself out to win that small battle.

I decided to open a SEP-IRA finally. Anyone who has any kind of income from self-employment can do it. If you're a "sole proprietor" like me, you can contribute up to 20% of your profit before self-employment tax and overhead is deducted. (Correct me if I'm wrong MonkeyMama, I know you're reading this.)

It's not that i make that much from freelance; this past year, for instance, I only grossed about $1,000, so that means I can contribute $221 for the entire year of 2009. Still, if I had gotten around to doing this 10 years ago, i would've had a tidy little nest egg by now. There was at least one year when i grossed about $5,000. The more money you can put in a tax-deferred account like this, the better. That way, it's not taxed every single freakin' year, plus it reduces your taxable income in the year that you make the contribution.

So I filled out all the paperwork and am mailing it off tomorrow, with my little check.

I was fairly busy with freelance work today, 1 press release after a phone consult with the client (let's hope 3rd time's the charm) and then got a signoff on a blog post i wrote for another client and got go-ahead to start work on the next 2 assignments for that same client for February and March. So this keeps me happy cus I feel like I'm EARNING Money (i say this as i type by flashlight.)

I also am feeling especially accomplished today becus LO AND BEHOLD, I started wallpapering my downstairs bathroom!!!! You know, the project that's been on hold for roughly 2 years becus mid-project i suddenly appeared to have lost all taste for messy wallpapering jobs. (That hasn't changed, I can assure you.)

So i did about one quarter of the bathroom (it's pretty small) in about 2.5 hours. There's measuring involved, which I'm not good at, and once you wet the wallpaper backing, it's quite slippery to handle and glue gets everywhere, and you have to work fairly quickly or the backing gets tacky and it won't stick, and you have to make sure to smooth all the bubbles out. OMG. What I got up on the wall is by no means perfect, but it'll do. I hadn't bothered to line up the pattern when laying side by side paper becus the pattern is a stone-look design and i didn't think I'd need to, but i do see that yes, i need to. Depending on how often the pattern repeats, you can waste a lot of wallpaper that way, so I'll have to be careful to maximize every inch of that wallpaper. I bought is several years ago and if it ends up i need another roll, for all i know it could have been discontinued, which seems to happen a lot in the wallpaper world.

The most difficult parts are yet to come, namely, behind the toilet, The tank actually touches the wall, so i HAVE to remove the tank to do the wallpaper. I've had the water turned off for a while now becus there was/is a leak that i haven't wanted to spend money to have a plumber over to fix, so i think at least the tank is empty. I just have to see if you just lift the tank off, or what. Does anyone know?

The other hard part will be around the mirror and new light fixture above the mirror. I'm not going to take either one down so am hoping the wallpaper will slide in under both. The light fixture has a round base that attaches to the wall; i will most surely mess that part up. (wish me luck)

I skipped going to the gym in order to start on the bathroom. It was worth it; i can't go to the gym every day like i did last week.

I went over to my mom's for lunch yesterday. (I really enjoy the unemployed lifestyle, that is, if it weren't for the lack of money) She made my favorite dish, soft as butter Brussels sprouts in the pressure cooker, and cream of broccoli soup and very good bread.

I agreed to help her install her next art show at a local library 3/31, assuming I'm still out of work.

I called the census bureau today to find out if they'll be calling me soon to offer me a temporary job since i took their exam back in November and scored 89. Responding to my questions, she said yes, they usually have more applicants than they have a need for, but that with my score of 89, I should be hired, altho she didn't say that in those very terms, that was the gist of it. She said to expect a call late February/early March. So that would be great to have several weeks of f/t employment.

So last week i worked out at the gym and spent about a half hour each time on the stair stepper, burning between 200 and 310 calories each time. I had hoped that would be enough to tip the scale (down) but i was very discouraged to see my scale did not agree with me. I haven't lost anything.

So since this is week 2 of my 3 free weeks at the gym, i had already decided to kick it up a notch and work out on the stair stepper 45 minutes each time I'm there. It really is a sweat inducing workout and i get my heart rate up to about 90% of maximum capacity, which is roughly 150 beats a minute.

Then, of course, my mother had to tell me about her neighbor's son, my age, who had a heart attack and died while working out at the gym 3 years ago. Sort of got me nervous. How do I know how much plaque i might have built up in my arteries?

I did some laundry the other day and let the clothes dry indoors, which worked fine.

I have earned 2 points for the Feb. home cooking challenge MTD.

Next week i'm driving my neighbor to the doctor's to have the first of 2 knee replacement surgeries. I told her take advantage of my free time while I'm still not working! So she scheduled it quickly cus i don't know who else she would have called.

That's about it.

Tomorrow I'm going to the dump and will be able to get rid of some items i culled during the January Purge 30 in 30 challenge. An old electric sander, a non-working cordless drill, a rusting toilet snake. Since they all have metal parts, I'll put in the metal section where they can recycle some of it. I'll put a note on the sander, "Take me, I work fine." Offered it on CL but no takers. The drill's lithium batteries I'll hold to drop off at the Household Hazardous Waste pickup day in May.

I'm stumped. I've been really focused on cutting back on expenses. So why, oh why, did my electric bill come to $87 this past month, more than it's been seen March 2007?? I know the days are short, but still....

And why was my January grocery bill equally high, at $266?? I've been trying to keep it under $200.

I'm hoping my "Use-the-Flashlight-at Night" mantra, for moving from room to room, will help with the electric bill. While I'm home most days now, I don't use lights during the day, just the computer and TV.

As for food, I see that in January I shopped at the following grocery outlets:

Costco: twice ($79)
Shop Rite: once ($44)
Stop & Shop: twice ($63)
Xpect Discounts: once ($43)
Trader Joe's: once ($13)
Unknown: once ($23)

That's 8 trips in the month! Seems like a lot, but often if I'm in the area of a supermarket for another reason, I'll stop at the supermarket for a "few things" while I'm there, to save gas.

Ono top of that, I rarely buy red meat (beef, pork or lamb) and only once in a great while I buy chicken. The pricier items I do buy include things like maple syrup, dried fruits, nuts and good cheeses. I try to aim for cheap protein sources, like chicken livers, which I actually like, or canned tuna or chicken, eggs, beans or Lean Cuisines on sale at $2.50.

I'm really going to have to rein in the groceries. I honestly don't know how I could have spent so much. I do try to use up what I have, don't waste much and I do still have plenty of frozen tilapia on hand. I don't buy fresh produce out of season and in fact only shop for what's on sale that week.

The good news is, since I did my January expense statement a few days early, that I earned $99 more than I spent. Which is pretty good, considering I'm living on unemployment benefits and a very small amount of freelance income ($225 for this month) and $148 I got in other ways, including $100 from my dad as late Xmas present (thanks, Dad!) and $48 from doing a focus group ($25) and a few surveys.

Here's just a sampling of the crazy things I do to save money:

I continue to enter and leave my house, not through the front door, but down the basement stairs into the garage, so as not to let a blast of cold air into the main part of the living area each time.

As mentioned above, I will now always use my flashlight when traipsing from room to room for brief periods of time if it's still dark in the a.m. when i get up and at dusk, before settling in at computer or TV. I find myself constantly turning lights on and off after just a few minutes in a room, which wears out CFL bulbs more quickly. So unless I'm in the kitchen for a while, making dinner, for example, or reading a book, I'll use the flashlight.

For a long time I used to follow the rather gross habit of "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown...." but my toilet got disgusting stains that were hard to remove, so those days are over. I found that if I had unexpected guests who wanted to use the bathroom, that damn dirty toilet was the first thing i thought of and I'd have to race to clean it first.

Of course, I'm still consolidating driving trips as I have for some time.

The heat remains on at a higher daytime temp (64) than any other year since I've lived here, but it was my bad luck to lose my job as cold weather approached, and since I don't want to be tempted to spend much, I usually stay home. I can only layer on so much clothing before it becomes bulky and uncomfortable, so i usually pad around here in sweatpants, a turtleneck and a sweatshirt. Also, one of my newer cats has short hair and gets chilled as he's less active than the 1-year-old.

I rarely use my big oven and have successfully used my smaller toaster-oven style appliance for everything from roasting vegetables and fish to baking a quick bread. Once in a while I pull the slow cooker out, too.

Because of continued concerns about the health hazards of eating foods contained in bisphenol-lined cans, I'm avoiding as many canned food items as I can. So like last night, I had a recipe calling for 2 cans of chickpeas. I bought the dried variety, saving myself some money, but then they had to simmer on the stove top for over an hour, causing me to use more energy. (Always a trade-off.)

I also have been wearing the same clothes, day in and day out, when I know I'm not going out anywhere, or only running an errand. Unless they smell or get some kind of food stain, I could wear the same clothes for 5 days in a row, no biggie.

Same goes for showering. My hair actually looks better if i don't wash it daily becus washing strips all the natural oils away, so I also skip showers for 3 days or so. Sorry if i gross you out, but it's saving me on my water bill and toiletries.

(I realize many of you don't share my unemployed situation and so must go out into the world daily and look "presentable.")

I don't often launder towels, since when you step out of the shower to dry yourself, you're already clean! Exception would be in the summer when they start smelling mildewy. Same for bedsheets. It's only me, living alone, so I don't think I'm offending anyone.

I always line-dry my clothes in summer, but I'm also now going to start drying my clothes indoors in winter, since even with the relatively cooler indoor temp of 64, it's enough dry heat to do the job over the course of a day. Plus, the damp clothes help humidify my home, which, with its forced hot air system, is exceptionally dry in the winter. I can always tell how dry it is by looking at the cats' dry, staticy, lackluster fur.

I still have a huge inventory of old stationery I nabbed from my office 2 jobs ago when the office was closing. It would have been thrown out otherwise, so I'm sure I have several years worth of paper for my printer as well as envelopes.

I also have enough shampoos, body washes, deodorant and hand lotions to cover a naked mastodon. All those freebies and Walgreen's free-after-rebates were really worth the effort.

When I start feeling "deprived," I make a point to attend an MS conference and physician lecture sponsored by the pharmaceutical company. It's a free dinner and free tote bag, pens and chap sticks, too. The Masonicare in my town also periodically offers free lectures with free dinner and I did one of those, too, with a friend.

I have dropped all subscriptions, and actually enjoy reading my local weekly paper at the library now in their nice reading room. It's too cold to walk there now, but it's just a mile from my house.

When I fill up my tea cup to heat in the microwave, I used to be in the habit of letting the water run cold first before filling the cup becus I'd read that the cold water makes it unlikely any old iron in the pipes would leach into the water. Instead of wasting that water now, I keep a pitcher on the counter to capture it, and i use that water to water my houseplants. I do the same with the previously wasted water from the shower when I waited for the water to heat up. I have a bucket in the shower that captures, some, though not all of it.

Just a few of the many little habits I've adopted, and I doubt I'd stop doing many of them even if I hit the lottery tomorrow. What are some of your secret frugal habits?

I have seen a few people here are still going to extreme lengths to save on their heating bills this winter.

I haven't done that this year, mainly on account of one of my 2 new cats who seems to get chilled easily (don't laugh, it's true, and yes my heat bill will be higher), but I've been focusing more on my electric bill.

Despite the best of intentions, i got the bill today and it was pretty high...$84. That, despite walking around in the a.m. and at dusk half in the dark, going down the stairs in the dark, etc.

I turn an awful lot of lights on for very short periods of time, mostly going from one room to another. I know that's not good for my CFLs (it shortens their lifespan) and so now, becus that big bill proved I wasn't doing the good job I thought I'd been doing, my next trick is to learn to carry the flashlight around with me in the evening. It's a rechargeable battery and I'm guessing will be cheaper than flicking lights on and off all the time, not to mention safer than stumbling around in the dark.

Getting back to the heat situation, looks like I'll need a 3rd fill-up around 1st or 2nd week of February. Ordinarily, due to my willingness to freeze in a chilled house, i get through the entire winter with just 2 fill-ups. But since I'm not working and home all the time, since I don't want to be tempted to spend much, I find myself home sitting at the computer or TV a lot, and I get cold myself. So this winter i've "splurged" on relatively balmy indoor temps of 64 during the day and 63 at night.

I did a month ago change electrical suppliers; here in CT, electric rates are high and the state has been trying for years to deregulate and make prices come down. My switch to a different supplier just went into effect earlier this week, so we'll see if that helps. Their kilowatt rate appeared to be lower than what I had before.

I worked out at the gym today, 4th day in a row; when i got there around mid-day, just a couple of guys were there and no staff in sight. About 15 minutes later, the guys left and i was the only person there!

I'm really not happy with the way this gym operates. When they do have staff there, it's just one person, the personal trainer, and then when they're working with you, they have to go running to the door to let someone in every 5 minutes. Unless you're a full-fledged member, you don't get a card key. My town is pretty safe so i don't know what's with all the heightened security. It causes the trainer to be distracted and my whole session is disjointed becus they're constantly interrupted by either people waiting at the door to be let in, or others who need to be directed to fill out paperwork at the desk or the phone ringing.

I'm more concerned with my OWN security when there is no staff person on the premises. I don't know that i'll be signing up when my 3 weeks are up after all.

What i do like about this gym is that most of the people who work out there are over 40, and some are well over 40, in their 60s. It just makes me feel comfortable not to have to measure myself against a bunch of svelte bodies.

After 4 consecutive days of working out, though, with or without my trainer, I am getting a little tired of that trip to the gym. I had told myself i wanted to take maximum advantage of my 3 free weeks, especially if i end up not joining, but it does wear on you a little to go every day, so i am looking forward to the weekend off from there. My goal was/is to go 5 days a week, just for these 3 weeks.

I got some more freelance work from my "old faithful" #1 client. So it should keep me busy tomorrow and/or over the weekend. I have one other project up in the air waiting for client revisions.

I am really upset.

A few days ago i distributed a press release I'd done freelance for a company I've worked for, for years. Among the dozen or so publications and online publications I sent it to was a newish website that focuses on a particular industry and was, of course, appropriate for the press release I was sending out.

As is customary, I put "For Immediate Release" at the top of the press release, along with my name, phone and email in at the top right portion of the page, in case the editor receiving the press release should have any questions.

I have also set up 2 or 3 google alerts, one with my name, to let me know when anything with my name is published online, or when an aggregator news site picks up something I wrote at my last job.

So I just got a Google Alert. Would you believe this website posted the entire thing on their website today, including all my personal contact info (name, email and phone)??????

What idiots. How dumb can you be?

I've emailed them to correct ASAP and will call them tomorrow. I guess that tells you the caliber of the person handling this stuff.

Talk about sore muscles.

Yesterday, 1st day at the gym, did the stair stepper for 25 minutes = 230 calories burned.

Today, did the stair stepper again, this time for 30 minutes = 301 calories burned.

Boy are my leg muscles sore.

Got my hair cut. It's short and looks pretty good. Although she put a lot of product in it ("hair wax") and i think that makes it look less clean. Cost $23 with tip. I thought it was going to be $15 + tip but apparently they charge extra for the shampoo. Next time, it'll be a dry cut. I consider this a splurge.

She let my hair mostly cover my ears and i think it looks much better when i curl that hair behind my ears, so next step will be snipping off those pieces, I think.

Today was the first day of my free 3-week fitness training with a personal trainer.

We seemed to get through a variety of exercises fairly quickly, and then I went off on my own to do about 25 minutes of stair steppin' and burned off 230 calories!!

The gym is short-staffed and i can't say the trainer is really professional (too much chit chat and griping about her job and her co-worker), but it's free so I won't complain. I just wish the door wasn't locked at 9 a.m. With only one person there from 7 to 10 a.m. (the trainer) it takes a while for her to notice you banging on the door, and the people already working out on machines don't won't budge. They just look at you.

Tomorrow is the big day..I'm getting my hair cut....SHORT....for the first time in about 15 years, at least. I'm really ready to have it done and am just tired of always having hair in my face and having longish, thick, dried out looking hair with no body. I think it will look much tidier when it's short. This is the time to do it, when i don't have to face co-workers with a shocked lookeon their faces. It's a big step, from long to short, but i don't think it can look any worse than it does now. Can't wait to have it done.

I wrapped up one press release today but will wait til tomorrow to bill him so i don't appear too "eager." The other one it looks like will have to undergo a third round of revisions.

It's incredibly windy and rainy here. These 50 mph wind gusts seem like they're going to take trees down here, but so far, they're all still standing.Well, small branches have come down and i see the 2 bluebird boxes are listing wildly, but those i can fix later.

After that big workout today, i am sore and tired but now i can relax without feeling guilty. Ideally, I'd like to return to the gym not just on the 3 days with the trainer, but also on the other 2 days to work out on the treadmill or stair stepper, which is my preferred torture device. I hope to return tomorrow after my hair cut.

I have to remember to bring a small hand towel with me and a bottle of water.

I was incredibly saddened and disappointed to hear morning newscasters say, "Health care reform is dead" with the defeat of Massachusetts Senator Coakley.

It's something that I felt would have really made a difference in my life, having a chronic health condition.

For the life of me i can't understand the opposition so many voiced. There seemed to be such a groundswell of support. We've all heard the stories of people whose financial lives were turned upside down by a sudden illness, surgery or other medical debt, or of people who decided to get divorced just so they'd be able to get or keep health insurance for their family or of people who had to make choices between paying the utility bills or paying for their prescriptions.

So what's going to happen to these people now? Will everything just remain the same? Why does corporate America (in this case, meaning the health insurance industry) continue to dictate how we live our lives? Yeah, capitalism and is great and all that, but why does profit trump doing the right thing, time and again?

I made some progress on my downstairs bathroom wallpapering project.

It's only been undone, and putting that entire bathroom out of commission, for about 2 years now. (There's a toilet leak, too, so i shut the water off ages ago becus i don't want to pay the big bucks to get a plumber out here just for that. He fixed a leak on that toilet once before, but this leak, i suspect is where the tank joins the toilet. It's that seal thingy.)

Anyway, somewhere along the way I lost steam and found i had NO interest in finishing the project. Problem is, there's only me here, so no one's coming to the rescue.

I kept beating myself up since I've had nothing but time since being laid off last fall. And still, I couldn't bring myself to work on this d*** project.

I had stripped all the old wallpaper, repaired some of the holes, primed the walls and primed the wood trim, which was going from an ugly flat royal blue to a neutral semi-gloss cream. (Before that, I also replaced the old window and put in a new light fixture, so the place will look sharp once it's all actually done.)

So yesterday's progress was this: I actually put a coat of the new paint on the baseboard and crown moldings, the window trim and the cabinetry. Phew. Unbelievable. I have to check in there this am to assess whether I'll need to do a 2nd coat. That blue will be a little hard to completely cover.

The real challenge, of course, will be the actual wallpapering. I wallpapered my upstairs bathroom and 2 walls in my office, and was pretty happy with the results. But you really have to mentally gear up to do it, and that's been my problem.

I would love to start the wallpapering today, becus i think once i START it, it'll look so good, I'll want to continue. It always creates such a mess, though. I need to find something good to cut the wallpaper on. Last time i did this i just broke down a large cardboard box and it was a very imperfect solution.

This has just been one of those projects that's been hanging around forever. (My dad had commented that maybe I should hire someone to do it.) I would hate to get a job and still have this job undone because if I can't get to it now, I sure will have a harder time doing so once I go back to work!

Yesterday was a no-spend day. Having a hard time remembering what the heck i did yesterday...i know i forced myself to take a 25-minute walk though i wasn't really into it. Despite it being over 40 degrees here.

I did go through some old utility bills from 2008 and 2009 and shredded the ones from 2008. The 2009 bills will be stored in my attic trunk of paperwork just in case i need them for something.

I also finally got around to updating my beneficiaries on my tax-deferred investment accounts to include the Audubon Society, which i'd somehow inadvertently left off. I was feeling guilty cus they're the ones who are sending me a complimentary beautiful engagement calendar every year. Anyway, got that done so i can finally take that paperwork off the right-hand corner of my desk, where it's resided for about 2 years.

A survey company i've registered with but have done very little work for called me yesterday and after a few qualifying questions, I'm now ready to drive down there later this week, about 35 minutes, to do a market survey. I'll get $25 out of it.

This morning, I swept the garage floor; amazing how much grit and dirt gets picked up by my tires and deposited there. I also did 2 loads of laundry and am hang drying it indoors; the air's so dry, it should work ok, and i should really do that ALL the time instead of using the energy-hog dryer.

The other energy-saving thing i've been doing, first time this winter, is making a point not to enter/exit my house through the front door, which opens directly into my dining room and living room. I've always wanted a foyer/mud room. Without that, all that cold winter air flushes into the house each time that door is opened, causing the furnace to kick on, so all winter long I've been coming and going through the basement and into the garage from there. I think it must be making a difference on my heating oil consumption.

I'd been meaning to call my dad last night to see how things are going with his macular degeneration, which recently worsened. I didn't call him then, but he called me this a.m. just to chat so i was able to talk to him about it. He saw the doc once, has to go again tomorrow. Last I'd heard from him, once the disease progresses from the "dry" stage to the "wet" stage, there's a brand new drug they can use to halt progression of the disease. I asked him about that again and he wasn't sure. I guess I have to trust the doctor knows what he's doing. My dad's 76 and it would have to be devastating to lose your sight. He hasn't noticed any real change in vision at this point except that he needs a very bright light to read by and he can't read digital displays, like on a cell phone, that well. He brings a flashlight with him when they go to eat out at restaurants.

I wrote 2 press releases (freelance) this past week, 1 for a client I haven't worked for in 5 years. I'm especially happy about that work becus even if i do more work for them this year, it won't add up to $600, which is the threshold at which they're required to report the income paid me to the IRS; if it's under $600, i don't have to report it and it's tax-free for me!

I still have $152 left on my cell phone and all the minutes that represents (608 minutes, or 10 hours!!) will expire by March 26. It's a prepaid cell phone i don't use much at all. The reception isn't great at my house, so when i called my dad back after getting his message that he called, i was standing out in the driveway, freezing my butt off.

So I can renew that plan, but if I don't want new minutes to expire in less than a year, than i have to pay for $100 worth of minutes at a time. So that works out to a little over $8 a month for the cost of the cell phone. It's worth it to me for safety reasons on the road, but i have certainly thought repeatedly about either cutting the cell phone, or my AAA coverage for my 10-year-old car, as a cost-saving measure. (I've decided that i won't.) And in February, after getting 3 weeks free, I'll probably start paying $35/ month for a fitness club. I really need to get back in shape, and while i can't control being out of work right now, i can control my weight.

So, since i'm headed to to the market research survey place Wednesday, I'll do a dump run then, since it's in the same direction. I'll also return the animal scale to the SPCA (also in same direction) and pick up some odds and ends at Stop and Shop on way back (also same direction).

I had a rather enjoyable day today although i never left town.

My one and only work-related task today was to write up a press release, so I wanted to get that out of the way first thing this morning.

I spent a lot more time on it than usual, but i wrapped up around noon. Then I left the house to mail out my car insurance payment for the next 6 months; it had been delayed because i needed to retake the safe driver exam. I scored a 98, got the certificate in the mail and included a copy of it with my premium payment. But anyway, I made a special trip to the post office to drop it off since it's due in exactly 7 days, which is cutting it close for me.

After that, I deposited 3 checks in my checking account and picked up some egg noodles I plan to cook up with the second half of green cabbage I've got.

Then I went for a 40-minute walk, which really revved up my appetite, to I somewhat impulsively decided to treat myself to a Subway lunch (meatball marinara with onion and green pepper and cheese and a small Diet Coke). I brought the sandwich over to a local park where I sat and enjoyed the view from my car. My hunger really made that sandwich taste great,and even eating from my car at a park felt like a "treat" after always eating at home.

After that, I ended up at the library to return 4 DVDs due today, and then I spent a leisurely 40 minutes or so reading my hometown paper since I let my subscription lapse as a cost-saver since losing my job.

After a 40-minute wait on hold, i finally got thru to unemployment office right before they closed to tell them i didn't get a check last week becus the previous week i reported freelance income. This always happens; the automated phone system treats occasional freelance work the same as a regular, part-time job and it necessitates that you call in to the unemployment office and speak to a live person so that your future weekly checks aren't frozen.

It wouldn't be a big deal except that earlier in the week, if you have the luck to not get a busy signal, the system will tell you the lines are too busy and please call back later. Well, i've been "calling back later" Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and today. It's one big hassle. You would think they would want to encourage people to honestly report partial income by making it relatively easy to report it, but no, that's not the case.

I'm looking at outstanding invoices for my freelance work; I have 2 things left over from 09 that i haven't yet been paid for, plus 2 new jobs I did in January; all 4 together will yield me $495 in income, although many clients really drag their feet in paying, so who knows when. Sometimes, I have to invoice a 2nd time and put "LATE PAYMENT" at the top of the invoice.

I got a postcard in the mail the other day from yet another of the proliferating gyms in my town. The offer was for 3 weeks (9 visits total) of one-on-one with a personal trainer, 30-minute sessions. Your $20 deposit is fully refundable as long as you complete all 9 sessions.

I was very interested in this and after having to leave messages twice on their answering machine, I decided to just drive down there to sign up. They've gotten so much interst that i can't start my 3 free weeks until toward the end of January, but that's ok, i can wait.

It's just one room, not overly large, and so there are a lot of machines crammed in there, but again, that doesn't really bother me. I just want to get in shape.

So i asked how much it would be if i decided to continue after the 3 free weeks. He told me $35 a month, and i believe it's just on a month to month basis, no contract, so i could drop it in the summer and pick it up again in fall and winter, which has always been my preference. I'll have to confirm that's the case.

Is that a good deal these days? It's not what i would call a state of the art facility; they don't even have a locker room where you can change, you just wear what you plan to work out in. They have a bunch of machines and i haven't gone through them yet so not sure what exactly they have.

Last night a friend and i went to another pharmaceutical company-sponsored physician talk. They indicated on the invite they'd have a "light buffet," which ended up being THREE entrees (fish, pasta and meatballs), salad, bread rolls and THREE desserts (brownies, cheesecake and chocolate cake). Needless to say, I was stuffed. Plus I loaded up on free pharmaceutical company-branded chap-stick, pens and another nice canvas bag i can use for groceries.

Not a whole heck of a lot of news here. It's very cold here, but so is most of the country. I plan to venture out shortly to pick up some groceries, but otherwise, fuhgetabouitttttt.

Watched a good DVD last night, very touching, called Departures. It was Japanese, made last year. A classical musician (cellist) who plays in an orchestra loses his job. He moves back to his hometown and in desperation, takes a job working at a funeral parlor. (He thought the job had something to do with a travel agency becus the help wanted ad referenced "departures." Turns out that was a typo and it was supposed to say, "Working with the departed.") ha ha ha ha ha

So at first he's totally squeamish about the job, which involves preparing the dead for burial, but he comes to like the job. A most unusual movie.

I'm kind of psyched becus i got a postcard in the mail the other day from yet another local fitness center looking for "volunteers" to take part in a supervised 21-day fitness training program. Your $20 deposit is fully refundable as long as you complete the study, which involves 30 minutes of exercise 3x a week. I'm in! Perfect timing and the price is right. Have I mentioned I gained 15 pounds in the past 4 months??? I hope it's not a "Biggest Loser" style training program.

This week is a "busy" week becus i've got something going on Mon/Tues/Wed. Monday night is a dinner/talk by a physician, Tues night a literary agent will talk on how to get published at the library and Wed. I have a meeting with a fitness club i'm writing a press release for. Whooee. Work. Nearly forgot what that word sounded like.

And, since the weather will be moderating, i aim to walk Monday through Friday. I'm bound to slip up out of sheer laziness, but ya never know.

Waiting around to collect all my various tax forms so i can start thinking about doing my taxes. I should get a decent refund this year which i could really use.

Found myself surfing websites browsing flannel sheets last night, all the while knowing I don't NEED any more flannel sheets and that I shouldn't spend the money. Still, I lingered over the $20 full set of Queen sized sheets over at sears, or amazon, or wherever the heck my travels took me. Thankfully, i didn't buy anything.

There are certain categories of "things" I like to buy, in excess of what I need. Flannel sheets is one of them. Writing stationery used to be another, though I think i've more or less weaned myself off that since there's only 1 person in the whole wide world that i still write to, once a year, at Christmas. I also have a thing for mortar and pestles, and oh, yes, gemstone jewelry. And shoes. And nice dishware and glassware.

For some time now, I've been feeling very unsatisfied with the way my hair looks. To save money, I've had my mother cut it for years, now, just a few inches off the bottom usually. It's mostly straight with a little wave, a few inches below my shoulders and an off center part.

It just feels ick lately and I've decided to get a professional haircut to a shorter length. I'd love to go all out and get a short haircut, modeled upon some gorgeous actress, but you know how most haircuts never look the same on you as it does in some magazine.

So I guess I'll go slightly more conservatively with a chin-length cut, definitely off the shoulder, no heavy bangs, maintenance free and something that hides the part, a somewhat tousled look. My friend recommended a place at the mall that does a $15 haircut.

I like this cut, but probably don't have enough wave in my hair to pull it off:



I don't like hair in my face or hair that i have to constantly pull back. I want something that will make me look a little neater and professional when i next go in for a job interview.

I've had long, unstyled hair for most of my life and since not working, i dress like a slob and feel like one whenever i venture out anywhere. I need to pull my act together.

I'll wait til the end of the month so i can time the salon visit to right after a hair coloring cus no one would like to see my roots.

Really excited to finally do it. People seem to really like this particular salon, and it's certainly cheap enough for me. Anything would be an improvement over what i have now, which i would describe as "unstyled blah."

I wasted a lot of time at the car dealer today cus i had an awful sounding rattling noise coming from the back, like something was loose. I've also been driving for months with a periodic high pitched whining or whistling noise from the front (fan belt adjustment?) After a long and boring time, they said they were done and had fished out a pebble that got inside my alloy wheel, but they couldn't replicate the whining noise from front. At least they didn't charge me anything, but it sort of wrecked some other plans i had for my time.

The one thing i did accomplish today was i received in the mail the safe driver exam that gives me a 3 year discount on my car insurance. My car insurance is due in 1/24 so i knew i had to do the exam quickly so i could apply it to to my now due premium, so i read the booklet and took the exam today and got it in the mail. So that was a sense of accomplishment.

So my mother got me a nice, red cashmere scarf for Xmas. Problem is, I have literally dozens of scarves she's knitted (crocheted?) me and I doubt that cashmere one would see use more than once a season. Mom, what were you thinking?

so I was able to return it to TJ Maxx and get a store credit for $20. I put that money to much better use, I think, but not before browsing the entire store from top to bottom. It was actually hard to find anything I felt I had to have. I wanted something that could be used and useful, not another tchotcha.

I bought a pair of cute red flannel pajamas with little puppies on them, marked down to $11, and had enough money left over to buy 4 pairs of panties, also marked down to $2 each. After that, I still had exactly $1.01 left so i searched for socks, but they were all sold in sets, so I shelled out a few extra dollars ($4) for an overpriced bottle of pineapple-scented hand soap. I've discovered I really like a hand pump soap dispenser at the kitchen sink, cus that's the first place I'm headed when I come home from being out, to clean any germs from the outside world from my hands. I haven't been sick yet this year.

The other day I also was able to make use of a $10 coupon from Medco at their online store. It took me the longest time to get that coupon to "take," but I finally managed to get a free bottle of Centrum Ultra Women's multi-vitamins with total out of pocket being .99.

After food shopping at Costco and Shop Rite yesterday, I stopped at Arby's with a coupon for a free roast beef sandwich (obtained from this site) with the purchase of any soft drink. I hate Pepsi, but got a small one, which still cost $1.59, and I didn't drink much of it, but the sandwich was pretty good.

Today I made a BIG pot of vegetable soup making use of the last of my frozen tomatoes from last summer's garden and chicken broth, plus shredded green cabbage, halved Brussels sprouts, baby carrots, baby spinach, some leftover ham, Italian green beans, mushrooms, onion, garlic and zucchini. I put so much stuff in their that the pot threatened to spill over, and I have leftover mushrooms and spinach for a pizza, though that means running out to buy a crust.

Really trying to minimize spending to only essentials, except for a dollar or two here or there. I have been out of work for 3.5 months and have yet to spend any out of pocket for living expenses. I've been surviving on the unemployment and can do so for a year, if i have to, as long as i live like a Norwegian monk.

I have a little over a half of tank of gas and I hope to make that last the rest of the month.

This past year's nice little stock market recovery did wonders for my portfolio. My net worth is now 28% higher than it was a year ago last December 2008. (Steady paycheck deductions into my 401(k) also didn't hurt, either.)

But, it's about $2,450 less than my net worth in 2007, which was my all-time high.

Upward and onward!

I had a nice visit with my dad and stepmother Monday/Tuesday. As with Thanksgiving, the 3-hour trip there and back was non-eventful, meaning, no traffic issues.

We had a super-wonderful Japanese lunch Monday shortly after I arrived; it was just the 2nd time I've had Japanese. I really like the seaweed salad, plus i had a chicken teriyaki Bento box and red bean ice cream for dessert.

Later, i went with my step-mother and her dog, Lily, for Lily's final exam at therapy dog training school. There were lots of much bigger dogs there, including a standard poodle, a shaved down English sheepdog and a Dalmatian, but she passed and K. was quite pleased.

She wants to start bringing her to a local hospital. The dog trainer gave her a 2-page list of hospitals, nursing homes, hospice centers and public libraries that have dog programs. Amazing it's gotten that big. And she wants to put her other dog, Bailey, through the same training.

Monday night we had dinner at the Bonefish Grill, my first time there as well. The place was packed. What recession? I had the tilapia.

Tuesday a.m. we ate breakfast at their favorite diner. (Yes, they eat out a lot.) We ran into a few of my dad's old crony friends there. Afterwards, I stopped to fill up on NJ's cheap gas ($2.35/gallon), which is ending in 2010 cus the state needs to balance its budget with gas taxes, and I headed north on the Parkway listening to New York talk radio.

Step-mom kindly sent me packing with some home-made beef stew, pumpkin soup and a big glass jar full of blackberries and gooseberries, which i plan to bake tomorrow with their strawberries in a gargantuan berry crisp. All these berries are taking up too much room in my freezer. I never seem to eat enough fruit in the winter, so here's my chance for redemption.



Today I created another blog for job search purposes and so I now have 3 blogs to post to at least a few times each week. That's a lot of blogging, but for the first time ever, I'm using a variety of topic-specific blogs as a job search tool to help showcase my writing.

I also finally finished writing a pro bono fundraising letter for a local environmental group. I had been procrastinating on that one.

Aside from running to the bank to deposit checks, I drove nowhere today. Spoke again to my friend/neighbor H., who still sounds quite sick on the phone, so i guess she won't be coming over New Year's eve.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.

I had a few stops to make on Christmas eve and while I could have deferred them til after Christmas, I decided: what the heck.

Somehow I got myself up early enough to leave the house around 8 am and went directly to Wal-Mart first. I picked up 3 cases of Fancy Feast for my best boys.

Then I ran to Kohl's to use a $5 coupon on anything my little heart desired priced at no more than $5! Actually, after browsing much more expensive items and looking through the entire store, I settled on 4 pairs of "boot socks" (extra thick and very soft) and with the coupon they were $3, or .75 each.

Then I headed to nearby Petco to use a coupon there for a free tennis ball dog toy that squeaks. I'll give it Bailey and Lily when i see my dad next week.

I've been wanting to get pants at Good Will for a while now, but I don't think they were open yet so just headed home and kicked myself for not bringing my mortgage payment with me so I could mail it, plus some checks I want to deposit.

I also did an hour long walk.

The only thing i had left to do was bake a cake, which I did, a carrot/walnut/raisin cake using whole wheat flour, wheat germ and honey, so somewhat healthy It came out very good.

Christmas Day I doodled around the house all a.m., refilled the bird feeder. Headed over to mom's around mid-day. The funniest thing happened when my mother's gift to my sister was strangely the same shape as my gift to my mother. Turns out they were the same thing, and what's more, I got one too! An immersion blender! I guess my sister had asked for one and my mother decided to get one for me too, and i just decided my mother would like one too. I had also secretly wanted one but had decided I couldn't afford it right now, so it was pretty funny. And they were all Cuisineart brand.

Among other goodies I got lots of homegrown things from my sister which are always appreciated, including some novel gift ideas, like a mason jar full of soap nuts, a native Himalayan fruit that actually is being used these days as a green alternative to commercial laundry soap. I also got a dried sunflower seed head full of sunflower seeds, for the birds, with a small branch of real homegrown cotton! (I didn't know you could grow cotton in Connecticut.) How cool is that. Also got a red cashmere scarf and a mini moss terrarium from my sister.

And every year, my mother gives us both a piece of her art, so here's the one I picked out this year, hanging over my bed:





I thought over the bed was a good place for it, becus depending on how you look at this piece, it could be the solar system or your mind.

For a while now, i've been doing occasional surveys with 2 different survey companies: 1 pays you $3 for each survey while the other requires you to accumulate points which you can then convert for $20 at a time. That company only pays the equivalent of between $1 and $3 for each survey, and it takes longer to make any money. They also take a really long time, 6 to 8 weeks, to get the check mailed, so you've got to be like me, a patient saver!

I remember reading another blogger saying she averaged $20 or $30 a month from surveys, which i found hard to believe at the time, becus half the time I'd spend 5 minutes answering endless questions only to be told i didn't qualify. Or, I'd try to begin a survey the day after I'd received it and they told me it was already closed and that they met their quota.

However, since i haven't been working, i have been doing nearly every survey that comes my way from these 2 companies and i must say, my earnings have grown. I'm already getting $20 in January and $40 in February from the 1 company and have been getting more or less regular $3 checks from the other company every week or so.

It may not seem like much, but just 1 $20 check will pay for a month's worth of cable. $40 would pay for both my phone and internet combined.

So while in the past I poo-pooed surveys as a meaningful way to spend one's time, that's changed for me now and i guess I'll have to "eat crow." (You young 'uns probably don't know what I'm talking about.)

I have 0 Christmas spirit this year. I'm not depressed, there's just not much going on. Christmas day will be the usual dinner with mother and sister and Monday i'll be headed down to see my dad and stepmother for an overnight visit.

There are no children in my family, so that makes a huge difference. Unusual, isn't it? 4 of us kids, only 1 just got married, and no one has kids of their own. I think it stems back to my parents' divorce, not to mention my first step-mother's early death, my mother's 3 failed marriages, multiple moves.... Too much instability. And i haven't been dating anyone for a while, so no big excitement over the whole gift-giving thing.

Maybe tomorrow night I'll invite my neighbor over for hot chocolate or something; i know she's estranged from her daughter, who's my age. Sorry, don't want to be a downer.

I also just heard from my old college roommate, who is passing thru my way on her way home from Boston to see family in NJ. I invited her to stop by, which she's done in the past.

I need to start thinking about baking tomorrow, so today would be a good day to make sure i have all ingredients.

I dreamed last night that I was in a strange place, a junkyard, of sorts. It was all woodland with a wide swath of land cleared in the center for a logging road that ran through it and disappeared into the hills beyond. Old, rusting hulks of cars were strewn about with other assorted castoffs of Man.

The place seemed ominous and gray due to warnings I'd received that wolves lived in this woods and came out after dark. Don't wander too far off or they might pick you off, someone told me.

(Large, predatory animals, bears or lions, for instance, are often in my bad dreams; in this one, it was wolves, maybe because Christmas at Yellowstone was on TV the night before.)

A large, dusty truck, the kind used to haul coal or iron ore, lumbered down the road. He wasn't driving it correctly, shifting the gears wrong or something, and there was a man near the roadside shouting at him. The trucker ignored him and passed him, then turned the truck around and barreled down this road past the man again, picking up speed and accelerating at a high rate of speed down the road past the man. The truck disappeared from my view and I waited for the sound of screeching brakes, the smell of burning rubber and a terrible crash, but I heard nothing. Still, I felt troubled, like something bad was going to happen.

Still looking in the direction of the truck and the man who'd been trying to help the driver, I saw the man turn to face me and freeze. Get over here, now! he shouted. Run! I knew without looking that there was a wolf behind me. I tried to run, and as in all dreams where locomotion is involved, my legs turned to jelly. I was holding a bag of something heavy in one hand and tried to drop it from my fingers, but it wouldn't seem to leave my grasp. I kept my eyes glued on his face, not daring to look anywhere else and I moved toward his outstretched hand, which meant safety.

When my hand nearly touched his, I awoke to the sound of a snow plow blade scraping the road as it went by. It was 4:30 am.

The white stuff's comin'.

I got to Shop Rite at 8:45 am, but it was already mobbed.I bought some lamb for my favorite lamb casserole and picked up mousetraps at Ace Hardware. (When you're snowed in, the best thing you can do is eat.)

Yesterday was a No Spend Day and a No Drive Day.

I was reading someone else's blog about their expected tax refund. It's so hard to predict with my erratic freelance side income, but it looks like my freelance income this year will be about the same, even a little less, than last year. And last year I got a $624 federal tax refund.

Plus, I'll have big tax credits for my energy-efficient windows and door, plus a few extra deductions for job hunting expenses. Taxes are already being taken out of my unemployment, so i don't have to worry about that.

The extra $ would be quite welcome in my coffers right about now.

Can't sleep. It's 3:30 am.

I got an email yesterday I used to work with. There was no message, just a link. Since I know the sender, I clicked on the link. It brought me to a website selling Viagra.

Apparently when you click on the link, the message automatically replicates and re-sends itself to ALL THE CONTACTS IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK. Not cool. I have several hundred contacts in my address book due to my freelance work; many I'm not in regular touch with. It would be very embarrassing to have to contact them and warn them not to click on the link, if indeed it's not too late. I know that Yahoo email won't let you send a message out to more than about a hundred recipients; it looks like spam to them; i'm hoping this is what happened to the rogue email and the message went undelivered.

Just another example of the importance of treating every hyperlink with caution, even if it comes from someone you know.

I don't think this one does any lasting damage, but who knows.

I went to a workshop yesterday on interviewing skills at our local library. There was a good sized crowd, all, I noted, over the age of 50. I didn't really learn anything new, but a good refresher course never hurts. Of course it's all pie in the sky stuff becus it's been months since i had a job interview.

I met some people in my town who are making an educational film about water quality. They need a writer to do the narration. This could be a very exciting opportunity for me, a combo of pro bono and paid work. I have already volunteered to do some grant writing work for them. They are mostly volunteers themselves.

It's kind of funny that ever since i was laid off, i was casting about for some interesting volunteer work to do. I got as far as meeting with one volunteer group but after an orientation i backed out. The work just didn't seem that interesting and involve virtually no networking opportunities. I had also wanted to return to a food bank but they had all the volunteers they needed. Maybe this film will be my volunteer opportunity. There's not just the narration of the film, but also the grant writing for funds I mentioned as well as PR work following completion of the film.

I've now woken my cats up, who are prowling around and no doubt wondering why I'm up at this hour. Luther was being quite the bad boy yesterday. He seemed to enjoy popping the bubbles in some pieces of bubble wrap I'd saved and put by the attic door to take up with me next time i went up there.

Hooray for me! I finished my Xmas shopping today and came in under the limit I set for myself.

Becus I'm not working, i decided I should spend no more than $100. No one is expecting much, if anything from me for gifts because they know about my employment situation, but I wanted to just tone it down, not eliminate Xmas gifts entirely.

I pared down my list and bought for 4 people.

1. My dad has a special fondness for orange marmalade, especially the good stuff he got when he was in England. So I went to a little gift shop in my town called the UK Gourmet and bought 3 varieties of marmalade: the original, a lime/lemon version and another version made for diabetics. Total: $17.25

2. For K., who mentioned she wanted to buy an immersion blender after the holiday, I bought a Cuisinart immersion blender for $30.

3. For my mother, I decided she also might like the ease of use (lightweight) and easier cleanup of using an immersion blender, so she got one too, as well as a canister of Bag Balm for her very dry hands (this was basically "free" becus I bought it a year ago as a kind of gag gift for someone else and changed my mind) and an Audubon engagement calendar.

The Audubon calendar is something I receive in the mail free every year becus I have named Audubon in my will. I really like the calendar, but it was a way to save money on Xmas gifts so am giving to my mother, who will love the photos. I've also named the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and some other groups in my will, but only Audubon gives me this calendar as a token of their appreciation each year.

4. For my sister, I got a used book from the library on edible plants for $5, a very nice set of napkins with a pretty botanical chestnut print 1/2 price for $3.50 and a box of photo paper, normally $8 but after rebate just $1.48! Today was the last day of the rebate at Staples, so i really lucked out.

Spending came in at $87 which leaves me with leftover money to buy a nice bottle of wine for Xmas dinner. If I had paid full price for everything the total would have come to about $113.

I'm also thrilled cus on my shopping errands today i was finally able to use a coupon (obtained thru the freebies email from this site) for a FREE box of Debbie's cupcakes. I had gone to Shop Rite and Stop and Shop looking for these and they had other Debbie's baked goods, but NOT the cupcakes. This always seems to happen to me. The really good coupons I get often can't be used cus i can't find the product.

When I was about 10 years old, I had a serious thing going for Ring Dings, which are very similar to Debbie's cupcakes. In fact, I remember writing the company a letter telling them how much I loved their Ring Dings in the hopes that they'd give me a year's supply of free Ring Dings. They didn't.)

Anyway, i found them today at Big Y. Normal price is $3.09. I also was able to use an Internet coupon for Michael Angelo's frozen entrees, buy 1 get 1 free. 1 large package of eggplant parmigiana is normally $9, so i got the 2 for $4.50 each and each box will give me 2 or probably 3 servings.

I also went to Pet Choice Supply, normally too high priced for regular visits, but i had another coupon for a free can of cat food and bought a few other cans of cat food there. Stopped at a craft show at local hotel, but didn't see anything i liked.

I love productive shopping trips.

I have 4 different work-related projects to work on this weekend, but haven't been real motivated to focus on them yet. But it's all good!

Yesterday was my mother's cataract surgery. I had to get up at 5 am in order to pick her up and bring her to the hospital at 6:15 am. Oh, it was still dark out when I left; hate that this time of year.

So the day before, I was shoveling snow in my driveway furiously, knowing I'd need to clear it for the next day. My house is on a curve where the road widens out and the plows always pile up a lot of extra snow at the foot of my driveway. I got 4 blisters from just 30 minutes of heart-pounding shoveling. I didn't do the whole driveway, just 2 paths for the tires.

I stayed with my mother in the waiting room until she went in and left at 7 a.m. It was too early to run any kind of errands, so I just went home and washed the dishes and checked my email and before I knew it, it was time to head back to fetch my mom.

I brought her to her place and I knew she didn't want to be alone, so I stayed for about 4 hours. she had 3 different antibiotic eye drops to put in 3x a day, so I did the first round. I made us lunch and we generally hung out and talked. She wasn't really in any pain but her vision in that eye was blurry and she had to wear a clear glass shield to protect the eye. When we did the eyedrops, I had to peel the tape holding the glass shield off and she was saying ouch, ouch becus the tape was pulling her hair.

I went back home to attend to some stuff there, and told my mom I'd call her at 4 pm to remind her to do the next round of drops. I then decided I should really go back to my mom's (3rd time!) with take-out dinner cus I knew she didn't really feel like cooking. She wasn't sleepy, just feeling out of it due to the dilation.

So I picked up 2 meals at Boston Market (believe it or not, she's never eaten there) and she really enjoyed her meal. The place is very close to her condo and is very conveniently located, so I may give her a Xmas gift certificate for the place for some time when she's out shopping or running around and heading home, hungry but tired and not feeling like cooking.

The good news is, she's feeling well enough already that she doesn't think she needs me to pick up her art on Monday from a show at local library; so that would be one less chore for me and save me the drive.

So that's how I spent yesterday.

I spoke with her today after her 1st follow-up with her doctor. He told her she now has 20/25 vision in that eye, so sounds like it worked out well. She has another follow-up on Tuesday.

This morning I met 2 former co-workers at a diner. It was supposed to be a group of 5, but 1 was sick and the other had a freelance deadline he needed to meet. It was nice to see my friends and also nice that T., the only 1 of the group still working, picked up the tab for our late a.m. breakfast. This is the same person who bought me chocolate and a herbal tea gift selection when I had to put my last cat to sleep. He's a stand-up guy.

On the way back from the diner, I stopped at Costco (packed) and Petco.

For this weekend, I need to make further revisions to a real estate blog I wrote last month. I need to make it more upbeat, less "gloomy." I was being too realistic, he said. Ha!

I also need to call a guy in town who's active in local environmental town boards and is making some sort of film and who needs a writer. I really don't know anything else, but a good friend of mine does his books for him (he's a landscaper) and she recommended me. I'm not sure I'd be the best qualified, but I'm sure they don't have the big bucks to pay someone who did. I can certainly write and I have a strong interest in environmental stuff, but I've never written narrative for a film. Could be a great opportunity or something that never comes to fruition and a huge drain of my time. I'll have to listen closely to what he tells me and take it from there.

It's hard to believe that Xmas is just around the corner. I'm done with shopping except for my sister, and I still have to wrap everything.

I was at Xpect Discounts the other day and I got a very nice clear glass cake pedestal dish for $3.99 and 4 16 lb. bags of walnuts for $2.99 each. Walnuts go for at least $6 a pound everywhere else, but this is my secret source of walnuts, rich in omega fatty acids. I eat a small handful daily for health reasons. I freeze the bags til I'm ready to use them.

So after 2 consecutive days of unusual activities, I'm back to the normal boring routine of being unemployed.

The storm that was headed east with a vengeance hit New England sometime last night, and I awoke to a new blanket of snow, about 3 inches, on the ground.

With rising temps, the snow has changed to rain and I'm waiting for it to stop (around noon, they say) so i can get out there and shovel the wet stuff off the driveway.

Tomorrow I am bringing my mother to the hospital for cataract surgery. I have to get up at 5:30 am at the very latest. This will be interesting, since I haven't used my alarm clock in months.

She won't be done til about 9:30 am, so I'll have a good three hours to kill, maybe with shopping errands, while she's in there, even though the surgery itself only takes 10 minutes.

My mom was feeling pretty anxious about it (who wouldn't, it's your eye) but after talking to a bunch of people (everyone seems to know someone who's had it done), she seems to feel better about it now because it's a quick recovery.

Let's see, I can hit Xpect for some cheap wrapping paper, then Costco for some milk since I'm running out. I could always order from the $1 menu at a fast food joint and I'm not averse to sitting in my car. Oh, bummer. I just realized those places won't be open around 7 am. Maybe I'll just go home again.

Yesterday H. and I saw The Invention of Lying in the $2 movie theater. It was pretty good and i thought a very clever idea for a movie, the idea being, a world where no one ever lied and how blunt and funny some of the things people said to each other were when only the truth could be told. Rob Lowe and Jennifer Garner were in it; I'm not sure why this movie never seemed to get much PR when it first came out.

I made a really good dinner last night, pasta, shrimp, pea pods and broccoli in a peanut butter sauce (just a half cup of PB, sesame oil, sesame seeds, water, rice vinegar, garlic). Every so often I get a PB craving and this definitely satisfies it.

For the past several weeks, I've kept the heat on at 64 daytime, 63 nighttime. Any cooler than that and it gets real chilly around here if you're sitting still. I felt, too, that one of my cats was getting cold, and since I'm here all the time now, I might as well be comfortable.

I checked the tank the other day and saw that I've still got a half tank of oil. I'd like to think I could get through til early January with that, but they are predicting much colder temps this weekend, so I don't know, since I never really turn the heat down now. It's a treat, though.

Craig's List sales have kind of fallen off. Bummer.

It looks pretty, but i haven't ventured out all day. Too cold for a walk.

Today was a No Spend Day.

I made chili for lunch.

Negotiating with family when I'll be down to Jersey. I had planned on a visit Dec. 21, but K.'s daughter in law wanted to come that day and if we both came, one of us sleeps on the couch. I can just as easily move my visit since I'm not working, although I had wanted to go that day in particular so I could join K. and her dog at their therapy dog training class.

We agreed I'd go down the following Monday. It'll be after Christmas, but that's ok.

I called to report in to the unemployment office this morning at my earliest time yet, 5:30 am and would you believe the line was still busy, busy, busy.

What else did I do today? Very little. Broke down some boxes and newspapers for recycling later this week, turned off the outside water to faucets (forgot to do this earlier), set some mousetraps in garage, filled the bird feeder and suet feeder and wasted time on the computer. I also reposted about 10 Craig's List for sale items. I'd love to keep the sales going.

This week I'll be transporting my mother to the hospital for cataract surgery and on the following Monday, I'll be picking up her art from a local exhibit. Also hoping to meet up with former colleagues for a networking get-together at a diner, maybe 5 of us.

I've gotten a little bit of Xmas shopping done. I need wrapping paper but hate like the dickens to contribute to the massive paper waste stream of the holidays. Wish I had old maps or something nicer than a brown paper bag to wrap the presents in. I'm not terribly creative.

I pocketed another $22 from the sale of a tripod bag. The gentleman, a retired engineer who spent most of his career at a local hospital, then took an early retirement package, traveled about 50 minutes to pick it up.

My bag isn't padded, but even then, the new ones seem to go for about $50.

If he had known how the economy would unfold in the past few years, he said he probably wouldn't have retired early. He says he spends his time doing wildlife photography and recently bought a wood tripod he never uses cus he doesn't want it to get banged around, hence the purchase of my case.

I finished a load of laundry this morning and billed a client for some freelance work. I called 2 survey/focus groups to see if anything's cooking, and the woman at one told me they're expecting some work coming in Tuesday, so I should call back then.

I love to express small bits of income in terms of what it can buy me. So that $22 will cover a month's worth of cable TV.

Yesterday I spent about $40 on a voice recorder. It's not something I would have chosen to spend money on now, but I bought it out of fear and concern that my neighbors' sons will escalate a little situation here. Last summer I complained to the town zoning that they were running a commercial landscaping business from their home. The noise from the trucks, trailers and equipment coming and going, plus repairs at times done 10 pm at night, is not something I want to live next door to.

The zoning enforcement officer kept giving them 30 days to find someplace to store their equipment, but i could see they were just ignoring that request and then I'd have to call zoning and tell them that nothing had changed. Each time zoning would talk to them and they'd say we need a little more time. As far as I could see, they weren't doing anything differently, except they started hiding their equipment in the backyard, becus they didn't yet know it was me who complained and i guess they thought the zoning officer randomly saw the equipment herself during a drive-by.

Now, more recently, they've taken to driving their trailer and mowers up a long driveway that goes to the side of my house and to an interior lot where another family lives, and that family apparently gave them permission to leave their stuff there. Then, in the morning, i see my neighbors driving up to retrieve the trailer and head out for the day. So they're trying to circumvent town zoning laws by hiding their stuff at another nearby house. Amazing.

I guess by now they've figured out it was me who called zoning (i've had noise issues with them before, namely, the same sons pre-driving age driving their ATV and dirt bike around the yard) becus 1 of the 2 sons who has the business has taken to revving/racing his engine as he drives up that driveway, or past my house.

The other morning, one of the sons banged on my door. I didn't answer the door, but i have now purchased a small, hand-held voice recorder I intend to play if he comes to my door again. I'm sure he will be very angry and i want a record of any altercation if things continue to escalate.

The 2 sons are about 19 or 20, and the zoning person told me the one she spoke to slammed the phone down on her. If i hold the recorder in my hand, it looks very much like a cell phone. I am most concerned about vandalism to my house or property, and i have taken to parking my car in the garage now, which i don't usually do unless it snows.

It's a little stressful, and I'm not walking in my neighborhood much, but this neighborhood has never been quiet, due mainly to this one family, and they are, after ones, the ones breaking town laws, not me. So I won't back down and will keep after zoning to enforce the law. This has been going on since July.