FINALLY connected with a very dear, old friend i've known for about 26 years. I met her when, as a recent college grad who decided to live on Cape Cod cus i figured i may as well live somehwere nice, even if i didn't know what to do with my life, I met B. who was renting out a few rooms in her very nice home on the lower Cape. I lived with her for about a year or so before moving to Vermont to take a job up there.

And our friendship stuck. She's about 10 years older than me, and was divorced by the time I met her. I have to say, we've seen each other through many failed relationships on both sides, though most of that has been a long distance thing. We usually catch up each year around the holidays, for some reason, but i havent' seen her for about 20 years. After my mother, she's probably one of the most supportive people i know.

Was back at the Honda dealer for the 3rd time in 2 weeks, after they failed to address the vibrating noise coming from the exhaust system somewhere under the car. Apparently nothing they could do about it unless i wanted to spend another few hundred on replacing a portion of pipe. I said no thanks, i can live with it, though i have lost some confidence in Honda. Anyway, i spent about $500-$600 on muffler replacement and tuneup, but saved a good $50 or $60 on the AAA 10% discount.

I've been doing some clothes shopping getting ready for the new job, a little here, a little there. But i refuse to pay top dollar, so i found a few things at TJ Maxx, Marshall's and today i was at Macy's with a coupon and got a few knocked down items.

Being home so much i've been watching Ellen at 4 p.m. I love her! And i sure would love to be a guest on one of her shows during the 12 days of Xmas gift giveaway. Today she gave away $1,000 worth of kitchen gifts to every person sitting in the audience including a KitchenAid mixer, steaks, cookies, wine, etc. But anyway, she's in LA and i'm nowhere near there, so unlikely. I hear the tickets for these shows went in less than an hour! I guess you have to just show up and first come, first serve.

Got my first bit of freelance work since leaving my last job. I'll interview the agent tomorrow.

Still waiting for my severance and other payoff from old employer. I emailed her recently to find out when she was doing the IRA rollover, as the market's been really up lately (until today) and i was hoping she'd do the transfer on a decent trading day. She keeps giving me these answers that are so unclear, then she reverses herself 3 times so i don't know WHAT's going on.

Did an hour's worth of leaf-raking today, plus 2 loads of laundry. Pasta for dinner (me bad).

This Saturday i volunteered to be a driver for our holiday fund drive where they need people to deliver holiday food baskets to the needy around town. I invited a friend to come along to act as map-reader (we have a big spread out town) and all round elf helper. I think she's coming, but not positive yet.

Following up on some earlier talk about the effectiveness of dryer balls (which i bought at Linens n things for $10), someone here suggested using old tennis balls instead. Which i thought was a good idea, but i came across some discussion of that online and apparently the rubber on those tennis balls can melt in the dryer, so not a good thing i guess.