I freaked out 2 days ago when we got all that heavy rain because as i sat here at my computer, water dripped down from between the window and frame. It's an old leak that's been repaired/caulked (on the outside, where wood trim meets the house siding) at least 3 times, every other year or so. Usually i discover it in the dead of winter, when you can't caulk cus it's too cold and won't dry. So i guess i should consider myself lucky to have discovered it now, because tomorrow will be in the 60s and that gives me a single day to haul the ladder out (it's the 2nd floor) and try to gouge out the old caulk and apply the new. I don't know why the caulk doesn't hold. It's one of those jobs i hate, partly because my ladder, fully extended, barely enables me to reach where i need to reach.

That book sale at Audubon society was a bit of a letdown. There were just a bunch of older, mildew-smelly books. I didn't buy any but i did admire the countryside where the sanctuary was located. The people there were extraordinarily friendly. I kicked myself for not bringing my camera with me, for then i would've done a walk on the trail. It was a beautiful day, and i should have done so anyway instead of heading home. I'm still acting like I'm on some sort of schedule.

I applied for another job today, curiously it's located about a mile or so north of my old job. It's more of a journalist type job for a print/online publication that goes out to public school superintendents and tracks trends and news in the schools.

There was another job in Stamford, one i didn't apply for, which nearly made me gag with envy. They wanted a financial writer for one of those white glove, extremely profitable capital management firms with lots of high net worth clients. My background is in financial services, but they also required you be a graduate of an ivy league school. I met all their other requirements except the ivy league one. The pay was up to $175K. Yes, you read that right. I daydreamed a while about what i could do making that kind of money.

This year I've been trying something new to pick up all the falling leaves. I would never use a noisy leaf blower, and so raking, while good exercise, is a laborious process and very time-consuming, first raking leaves up into big piles, then dragging my tarp out, raking the leaves onto the tarp, then dragging the tarp to behind the tool-shed or elsewhere and dumping them. Repeat.

This week I've been mowing every day, weather permitting, because it seems a heck of a lot easier to simply mow over the leaves (the suction sweeps them up into the bag), then all that bending over and raking, raking, raking. The new process seems to be working more easily, though i will never get every single leaf in my yard.

That's what I'm off to do now: mow. After that, maybe I'll start rummaging through all my old sample files (2 2-drawer file cabinets in the attic filled with nearly 30 years' worth of writing samples) to select the 10 best for my interview next week. I have a ton of stuff but i already have an idea of what I'll pull.

Few trick or treaters want to trudge up my driveway, so i may suggest to H. that, rather than sit in darkened homes tomorrow night, we escape to the local coffeehouse to while away a few hours.

I did my expense statement for month of October a few days early, and talk about frightening experiences.