This is a view of the north side of my house. What you see is just a walkway connecting back yard to front yard. Doesn't look like much (The Jungle is the fenced in area to left) but the big achievement here was pulling out (by hand) a well established bed of pachysandra along the house. I'm sure it was planted here about 30 years ago by some well-meaning owner who figured it was maintenance-free and stayed green in winter, which is true, but it's also a haven for mice and moles, carpenter ants and ticks because it's a moist environment that stays damp, perfect for ants and ticks, my nemeses. I'm still on meds for Lyme Disease. So anyway, it was a lot of work, and then i mulched. There are a number of lovely ferns there which you really can't see here. The tall shrubs on the right side look overgrown, i know, but they are rhododendrons and mt. laurel which are great in bloom.

I read so much about the economy, personal finances and money management daily; it's part of my job. (I haven't said too much about the website I write for, since when it launches in another month or so, it will feature my byline on stories as well as my photo, so i've been a bit conflicted about sharing all about that as i'd essentially lose my anonymity here if i share the URL.)

I try to apply as much as i can from these articles to my own life. For instance, I've read with interest about how many people are selling off personal possessions as a way to raise cash. I decided i should try to do the same. I've learned (the hard way) that once you convert money into material objects, it's very difficult to convert those possessions back into money. If you do sell them, you'll never get full value. So i try these days to be more careful to begin with before parting with cash.

I've tried tag sales in the recent past, but honestly, you can sit out there all day long and make maybe $100 or a little more. I don't like to haggle, so i priced my things very cheaply to start with and was privately annoyed that 1) people still wanted to haggle anyway and 2) lower prices didn't seem to move stuff any quicker.

I don't have time to learn the ins and outs of eBay, popular as it is, and having to package and ship every item out, with an extra trip to the post office, doesn't appeal to me.

So i recommend Craig's List. It's FREE, for one thing, and i only sell to those locally who can pick up.

When i had my surgery 2 summers ago, my then boyfriend very generously and somehwat impuulsively bought me a half fridge. It was a Magic Chef, stood about 3 feet high. I wasn't supposed to do the stairs much, so i pretty much lived on the 2nd floor of my home for 3 weeks, and yes, that Magic Chef came in handy after we stocked it with food and drinks. It was quite a nice appliance, with a stainless steel front door. He got it on sale for about $100.

But that fridge has sat in my spare bedroom these last few years, and T. and I aren't together anymore. The fridge isn't too heavy, but its bulky size meant i wasn't going to try to carry the thing down my narrow staircase. I really had no use for it and i kept it unplugged so i wouldn't waste electricity.

So that was the first item i posted on Craig's List, with a photo. I sold it yesterday to someone right here in town for just $65, a very good price considering i used it exactly 3 weeks. It was a little bothersome to have to deal with 3 others who expressed interest, made plans to come and then i heard nothing. That just goes with the territory, i guess. So it worked, IMO, much better than eBay with its shipping costs, or even a classified ad in the local newspaper, which would have cost me $5 or $7. Success!

I also posted a native American Indian drum i have. It has a beautiful sound.



I like it, and still like native American Indian pottery and other things, for example, but i really don't use the drum. Actually, i used it for a time as a coffee table after putting a round piece of glass on top of it. I had one guy who wanted it but he's about an hour drive, so we kind of left it open that the next time he's in my area kind of thing. But i think i'll repost that drum again, since postings expire after a week.

I've been mulling over what else i could post on Craig's List. Obviously junky stuff is not going to do well, and of course a picture is essential. But anyway, i can't tell you how satisfying it was to pocket $65 cash (enough to pay my electric bill for a month) and gain more space in the spare bedroom.


This is just a view of the backyard, which i liked becus it captures the beauitful red maple in the background, the rhodi in bloom.


I started another price book for groceries at FOUR area stores i shop at. It's all out of order, though, so today i plan to organize it by food type. I'm not sure how useful it will be, or for how long, since prices seem to be continuing their upward trajectory.


This (white) viburnum in bloom is what i consider my biggest success story as far as planting go. I bought it, mail order, as a 2 foot high stick and as you can see, it's now about 12 feet high and as wide. It's spectacular in bloom and then it gets these berries which are so relished by the birds they're picked off before they even ripen.

Yesterday was a nice mix of relaxation and a bit of work. Since i get up now for work at 5:50 a.m., i'm used to an early start, and lately i've gotten into the habit of getting out the door by 8 a.m. to run my errands while crowds are still light. So i did my grocery shopping, gassed up the car for another week ($4.19 a gallon) and returned some DVDs at the library. That was my ONE single trip i'm allowing myself per weekend.

We were expecting major thunderstorms all day, but they didn't actually arrive til after dark. I read my Kiplinger's and Money, made a yummy garlic shrimp and orzo over salad greens and that's about it. I had fenced off a portion of my strawberry patch to ward off woodchucks. (I've seen a baby in my yard twice now.) But i realize the numerous chipmunks, cute as buttons, are the ones who will really do a number on the berries. You know, one bite out of each. So me thinks i need yet MORe fencing to try to keep them out; maybe i'll try my netting and just drape it over the berries, but i think chipmunks could gnaw through that.

The veggie garden's coming along nicely with no signs of critter intrusions. The peas are growing well tho i still don't think they've flowered yet. They all got a slow start as we had some cold weeks there for a while.

The baby bluebirds hatched a while back, not sure exactly when, but i watch as both parents fly to and from the box to feed them. According to a little booklet i have from a local bluebird expert, each baby needs to be fed 40x daily. I'm just a little concerned becus i don't see nearly enough activity (40 x 4 eggs - 160 daily feedings) to back that up, so i hope they're all well. The bluebird expert i mentioned instructs you to be regularly checking the box to monitor when the eggs hatch, to dust the bottom with Rototene to kill blow fly larvae which are parasitic and attach themselves to the legs of the tiny bluebirds, sometimes even killling them, but i just can't bring myself to do that. I'm always afraid i'm bothering them too much, and i know last time i mowed the parents were divebombing me, obviously upset i was so close to the box.

So i decided not to mow my front lawn again until the babies fledge. that's supposed to take a total of 2-3 weeks, depending on food supply, and of course i don't know exactly when they hatched, but it's been at least 1.5 weeks now, if not 2. I'm fighting the urge to mow as the lawn is getting long.

So, the local woodchuck population seems to be thriving. Which is ironic, since last week my neighbor who lives behind me up on the hill had thier Golden Retriever killed by a coyote. Yes, a golden retriever, an 85 pound dog which was with their German Shepherd.

She called me and other neighbors to warn them to keep their pets inside. She'd let them out at 6:15 a.m. before work and only the German Shepherd returned. They found the body not 15 feet from their house, in a wooded area.

They called local animal control and the state, all of which have a more or less hands off policy about wildlife; learn to live with them, basically, which, tragic as this story was, i kind of agree with. Dogs shouldn't be allowed to roam freely, or cats either, IMO. My sister, who keeps chickens, has had her share of problems with packs of roaming "pet" dogs that killed her chickens just for fun. And cats, as natural predators, really do a number on the sonbgird population, baby rabbits or anything small enough to kill.

So my neighbor called the press, and 2 papers featured prominent stories. According to the paper, coyotoes don't hunt in packs, so it surprised me even more to think that a single coyote could kill such a large dog. I'm wondering if it was perhaps a mother defending pups or a territorial thing. Also, the dog, if it spotted the coyote in the distance, would likely have gone running toward it as you know how interested dogs are in meeting other dogs. The coyote could have attacked then.

Summer Fridays have arrived at my office. So now thru end of August I'll work 8 a.m. to 5:30 pm, a long day. My full lunch hour is now 30 minutes as well, but in return I'll gt 6 of the 12 Fridays this summer off. And on thos alternate Fridays I do work, I can expec to get out a little early, like 3 or 4 pm, so it's really not bad at all.

Come fall, as the days get shorter, we'll go back to our 8:30 to 5:30 pm routine and full hour lunches.

On Friday, when i left work around 3:45 p.m., i stopped at a bike shop to pick up my Trek hybrid mountain bike. I hadn't used it much in the past few years and it needed a new back tire, new front brakes and general cleaning/greasing. That cost me $118. Steep. But in my quest to save money on fuel, I really like the idea of trying to use my bike more, not for exercise, tho that's a bonus, but for simple transportation. That's really hard to do where i live because there are many hills everywhere you go and lots of traffic and busy roads. So where can i go on my bicycle, from a practical standpoint? Well, i did make one pleasant trip, about 15 minutes one way on a fairly safe road to the bait and tackle shop to get grubs for the bluebirds, but that's not a trip i'll regularly make. I can also peddle to the library rather than walking; that's a 10-minute bike ride. Also within range and relative safety is an over-priced supermarket i don't frequent and the bank. they are supposed to start building a new supermarket across the street from the other one. I haven't seen any activity there at all tho they reported a while ago in the local papers they planned to open this fall. I wonder if the current economy/tight credit is affecting their timetable. I hope not. This is an unusual family-owned supermarket and would be the third in the area. I haven't shopped at their other stores more than a few times, but their prices seem "decent," or perhaps comparable to Stop N Shop if you look for the specials, so i would shop there before i went to Big Y.