Yesterday I emailed the SPCA volunteer who helped me adopt my 2 cats last spring. I suspect Waldo may still have worms, though he was dewormed when i adopted him. He's looking very thin and he has these little burps after eating, the way he did when i first got him.

By right, i should take him to a vet and have him checked out, but although he's come far in adjusting to life here at home, he's still quite timid and is easily spooked. I cannot brush him or trim his nails. I can't pick him up and I also learned i cannot get him in a cat carrier.

The 2 vets who i knew in the area who have come to the house before no longer make house calls. I think they found it's just not cost-effective.

So, I told N. how Waldo was doing and asked if there was any way I could buy dewormer meds from her.



She doesn't always check email promptly, so after leaving that message I headed out the door to get my 2nd (500 mile) torque check on my new tires. We don't want those Yokihamas falling off when i head down to Jersey next week!

While they had my car, i walked over to Wal-Mart and got more Fancy Feast, an item i can never have too much of.

I then retrieved the car and stopped in at Xpect Discounts, since they're the absolute cheapest place in town for bird suet, at .52 a cake.

While I was browsing there (it's sort of like a dollar store but not everything's a dollar, just super cheap), I saw some pretty holiday glassware that immediately reminded me of some glasses I lingered over last Christmas at Pier 1. At that time, I really wanted them, but I felt they were too expensive. So when i saw similar looking glasses at Xpect, I picked one up, looked at the bottom and lo and behold, a Pier 1 sticker! The same adorable glasses with snowflakes and little snowmen! The Pier 1 price was $3, not really that bad, and the Xpect price was $2, so I picked up 4 of them.

I came back home and checked my email. I saw a reply back from N. who said yes, i can give you meds; I'm here at the shelter til 1 pm.

So i had to race right back out there and head in another direction to the shelter, but i had anticipated this would happen so i brought my trash with for a dropoff at the dump and also planned to hit Stop N Shop to redeem my coupons for 5% off total purchase AND FREE Edy's ice cream.

N. gave me a big hug at the shelter and she gave me dewormer for both cats and refused to take any money. Hopefully the cat has roundworms, cus that's the only type of worm this particular med, Strongid, works on; if not, they have other meds that deal with other types of worms. So complicated. I suppose there's a chance it could be something more serious. She mentioned kidney issues or diabetes. Don't want to go there right now. Those burp/hiccups really said "worms" to me so let's hope it's that.

So now my larder, aka fridge,freezer and cabinets, are jam-packed with food. I only hit stop and shop becus of those coupons, and earlier this week i only hit shop rite becus i had to drive my friend to the doctor's and had time to kill so shop rite is very close by, and then i also hit costco becus i was out of milk. OH, and at xpect i picked up 2 half gallons of tropicana cus it was on sale at $2.40 each; they're jammed in the freezer now.

I got feedback on the first real estate blog post i wrote for my client; he liked it, said we can use it later, but really had something else in mind for the first post. He never really fully expanded on that and hadn't responded to my emails, so that's why i'd just gone ahead and written the thing based on my understanding of what he wanted. No biggie, really. I hope to work on it this weekend.

I got quite a large credit card bill from Amex, mainly becus i started charging groceries when i remembered they give a higher % of rebate credits on groceries. So it came to (gulp) over $1,000. But of course i'll pay it in full; i'd been musing at why i seemed to have so much money left in my checking account and was prematurely patting myself on the back for living so frugally.

Just like last week, i dilly dallied on my walking for exercise regimen so now today, the last day of the week, i need to walk 105 minutes to hit my weekly target. It's doable, but it will be quite tiring.

Oh, so H. and I attended that dinner lecture hosted by Masonicares. She wanted to learn more about knee replacement surgery, which she needs, while i wanted to take advantage of the free dinner and break up the monotony of my weekday routine.

It was a pretty good dinner, chicken parmesan, pasta, salad, string beans and a soggy apple crisp for dessert. The doctor was very knowledgeable; i felt like i was in a med school class, except that all the other "students" were in their 60s and 70s. He seemed barely past 25 himself. It was a fun diversion, but unlike the MS dinner programs, i would feel funny attending another one of these becus they seem so attuned to elderly concerns and i felt like i stood out in that crowd due to my "younger" age.

There's a place here in town that's now offering free yoga classes through the holiday season (end of the year) for anyone who's lost their job, so that's an offer I won't refuse.

I took the exam this morning with about 16 other wanna-be "enumerators." I was supposed to be there at 9:45 am but the 30-minute exam didn't start until 11 am; it was a little disorganized. After he told us no one would be allowed to leave the room once the exam started, people starting running to the bathroom and running out to feed quarters into the parking meters.

Anyway, I think that score qualifies me for a job there. I asked him if I shouldn't expect to be contacted until the spring (it's for the 2010 census), but he said not necessarily, because they're hiring some temporary clerical workers now. It would be nice to get another gig going to supplement my freelance writing.

The freelance work I got has temporarily stalled; I'm waiting for a callback and the client's reaction to my outline of specific topics.

After the exam, I felt extremely liberated. I stopped at Costco to stock up on 3 gallons of milk, 2 of which I stuck in the freezer for later use. Being a regular milk drinker, buying in bulk cuts down on the number of trips I make to Costco.

I also learned from someone else taking the test that there's another census test you can take for a census supervisor, and I'm guessing the supervisors get paid a little better. So I'll look into that too, perhaps on their website.

My friend R. came over earlier on Monday to help me replace a wall sconce in my bedroom with a new one. Yeah, I bought it after I was laid off, but I thought it was a great price at $50 and is what is called "art glass," kind of a bubbled amber-colored globe with spiral-like design below and another glass teardrop shaped pendulum hanging from that. He couldn't finish the job becus the screws that came with the fixture did not allow it to lie flush with the wall, so he/I need to find 2 more nuts that fit the screws and then, he said, he could make it work.

I haven't had a chance to scrounge around in my basement for some loose nuts, but I could have some there, somewhere.

Tomorrow I have to drive my friend H. to a doctor's appointment; she's been feeling dizzy and is afraid to drive. I think it's an ear thing. Tomorrow night is our dinner/talk at local Masonicares on knee replacement surgery. She's going for the talk, I'm going for the free dinner!

Yesterday was one of those days.

I had to make my mandatory appearance at the unemployment office's re-employment services program, a fancy name for here's all the ways we can help you. I didn't see anything they could do to help me. (My former employer provided job coaching services as part of my severance.)

Some people get so caught up in signing up for every single class and service that they forget that the responsibility for finding a job rests with them. As if busy work will somehow help propel that next job into your lap. Well, anyway, I'm grateful that the 3 hours they allot for this program really only lasted an hour and a half. It was sort of a waste of my time, plus the gas, but anyway...

Back at home, I spent considerable time wrangling some more with my healthcare provider/pharmacy, which keeps billing me for a MS medication that the manufacturer/pharmaceutical company is supposed to be paying for. The drug-maker created a discount program whereby they pick up 100% of my co-pay for the drug, which was very exciting when I was first informed of this by letter in September. (Injectable drugs have a low rate of compliance since no one likes to stick themselves with a needle, so this is the drug company's way of boosting the likelihood that patients will keep buying their product.) The only problem is that the program's not exactly up and running as it's supposed to, and the latest computer-generated late bill payment informed me my account would be "frozen" until I paid up.

The pharmacy has put a "temporary $0 balance" on my account until the drugmaker pays the bill and she assured me it wouldn't mess up my meds when I need to renew the prescription.

After getting off the phone with the drug maker and the pharmacy (this was the 4th round of phone calls), I felt the need to de-stress via physical exercise, so in the waning daylight I went out to do a bit of raking and yardwork. It's so easy to find little chores for yourself to do simply by strolling around the property.

It's 7:30 am and I'm leaving at 9 am to take my US Census exam. I really want to do well since it will impact how much work I get (from 5 to 10 weeks next spring, from 20 to 40 hours a week, $17 an hour), and perhaps even my choice in working in the field or in their office. Although "the field" would be in my hometown, my preference would be to work in their office, about 20 minutes away, simply becus I don't like the image of unexpected loose or ferocious dogs when approaching unfamiliar houses. A lot of people around here have that Invisible Fence for dogs, but I could see some dogs feeling they have every right to get aggressive once you cross that invisible line. If I do end up working in the field, I will invest in a spray bottle of Mace. I'll push for the office work first.

Of course, best case scenario is that I find a new job before the census work gets into high gear in the spring of 2010, but I like to have a plan B. In this economy, I won't be at all surprised if I become a newly minted "enumerator," aka, census worker.

But first, just a quick note....Waldo is so doing so well and becoming accustomed to the routines and sounds of domesticated life with a human.




Even the camera flash bothers him a little less.

Since I'll be traveling for Thanksgiving, I was looking for a quick and easy, but delicious, recipe for something I could bring with me.

I was thinking about making chocolate, fruit and nut clusters and decided to try out the recipe today before deciding.

It's so incredibly easy, even a child could make this:

Put 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. (I like dark chocolate, so I used that instead.)

Heat on high for 1 minute.

Stir. Heat on high for another 30 seconds.

Stir until chips are all dissolved.

Add 1/2 cup walnuts (or pecans) and 1/2 cup dried cranberries to bowl and mix all together.

Drop by spoon in small clusters onto waxed paper and refrigerate.

Late, you can remove the clusters and store them in a lidded container. Keep the clusters refrigerated.

It's delicious! And oh so easy with just THREE ingredients.

I feel like I got a lot today. I did my grocery shopping at 8:30 am. Then I spent over an hour doing the practice test for the US Census exam whic is coming up on Tuesday. On my first try (it's a timed, 30-minute exam and I needed all 30 minutes), I got 3 wrong out of 23 questions, or 89%. I then studied those questions I got wrong, and determined that all 3 errors were due to carelessness alone.

I did also review how to do some very simple calculations manually. I'm so used to using a calculator I nearly forgot how to multiply using numbers with decimals, and how to divide a number longhand to get a percentage. Geez!

Tonight I also spent a few hours developing a detailed list of blog topics for the new real estate blog I'll be writing. The topics all relate to new construction and design trends, which should be quite interesting (green trends, outdoor "rooms," etc.) I also outlined my thoughts on what the blog should look like in terms of images, a title and so on. I want to make sure me and the client are on the same page, and once i get his blessing/go-ahead, I hope to start, and finish writing the first blog this week so it's out of the way before I leave for Thanksgiving.

I did a fair amount of yardwork today becus it was so warm (low 60s). Being around more means that for the first time that I can remember, I'm doing many yard cleanup chores now, in the fall, that I normally leave til spring. Things like cutting dead foliage, more leaf removal, etc.

I have some major pruning jobs planned for late winter, for some very overgrown mountain laurel (so I can see out my windows), forsythia (so it will bloom again) and burning bush (so I have a nice view of 3 evergreens that are now blocked from view when looking out my front door). I'd love to do it now, but it would not be good for the shrubs to do until they're dormant.

I've been walking on my lunch hour for many years. When I got laid off last September, I decided there was no reason not to continue and up the ante a little.

So I set a goal of a minimum of 225 minutes of exercise a week; that works out to 45 minutes 5 days a week. What's acceptable exercise? Walking, kayaking, biking, mowing the lawn or snow shoveling...anything that boosts the heart rate and could be considered cardiovascular.

Sadly, I haven't always hit my weekly quota. Of the last 7 weeks, I hit my goal just 4 times.

So on Thursday, I saw that I still was short by 90 minutes and would need to do 4o or 45 minutes on Friday and Saturday. Yesterday, I just vegged out. So that left me with 90 minutes of walking today. I started out this morning with good intentions. I debated whether to bring the camera but decided since it was a walk i've done recently, there would be nothing to take pix of. But then i ran into the farmer's heifer escaped from the pasture and standing gazing at me in the middle of the road. It would've been a funny photo. She eventually moved on over to the roadside where overgrown grass tempted her.

But anyway, it started to rain lightly. I turned to head back and abort the full walk. I told myself "Wimp!" and turned around again, but when the rain became steady, I turned home again. So I only got in 50 minutes. (The heifer was still loose by the roadside upon my return.)

With just 40 minutes remaining, I was determined to hit my weekly target and despite the fact it was still raining by around 3:30 pm, I just returned from going around the blcok 2 and a half times.

I don't know why I'm always sore when I go walking. It's not like I'm totally sedentary and not used to it. It often seems hard to figure out if it's muscle soreness or joint soreness (my hips). Today I know the back of my thighs were very sore, but I think my hips were too. Does this have anything to do with my being 50?

I'm debating whether or not to start doing yoga with H. I can pay $12 and do classes for a year, Mondays and Thursdays, with the 50 and older crowd. Maybe I'm lacking in flexiblity and need to stretch more.

Since I've been home more, I've been doing as many Toluna surveys as I can. I just got a $20 check in the mail and I see from my account I have another $30 coming to me, but not til December and January. (They're very slow in paying.)

I sent in the magazine story I did freelance, and my contact at the real estate company had just a minor few changes to make. Once we put that piece to bed (he was out Friday and so hasn't seen my revisions yet) I hope to have one more phone conversation with him that will enable me to start writing the first blog for his company's divison, which is commercial real estate and new construction. I'd like to get it written next week, well before Thanksgiving.

On Monday I have a 3-hour "enhanced re-employment services program" to attend in nearby city. My state's DOL tells me my attendance is mandatory, and from the sound of it, I will have to attend future such programs as well. I hope they don't tell me I need to change my career and become a firefighter or something.

On Tuesday, I will be taking the US Census Bureau exam. How well I do on that exam will determine how much work I get, so I plan to study the practice quiz pretty well.

Just had a long conversation with an old colleage still working at my old employer's. He caught me up to speed with what's going on there. He is job hunting himself and in fact would like to return to TX, I think, to be closer to family, if he could only find a job.

On Wednesday night, I'm going with H. to a Masonicares talk by a physician on joint replacement. She needs a knee replacement and feels nervous about it. It will be another free dinner (that's why I'm going and is right in town.

On Tuesday, I couldn't get online. My AT&T modem, which I'd only had for a few years, broke. They said I needed to buy a new one and the price had risen from $50 to $75. I'd have to wait a few days to receive it in the mail.

Thank God, I got the new modem tonight and with a technician from the Philippines helping me through a mystifying part of the installation process, I am once again connected to all things cyber.

Oh, the pain of not being able to check my email over a cup of tea in the morning, and then throughout the day.

Of course, wouldn't you know it, I got a boatload of freelance work yesterday and needed to hit one fast approaching deadline of this Friday for one of the assignments, an article for a local magazine.

I wrote the story here at home last night, and my friend/neighbor H. lent me her house key and said I could let myself in whenever I needed to come over. I needed to check a number of facts, etc. on various websites. I was there all morning while she was at yoga and emailed the story in around noon.

Boy, have I felt so disconnected for the past 48 hours.

Yesterday my dad and K. made the 3-hour trek back up here with a new wheelbarrow tire for me to replace the flat one. While my dad put it on, K. and I took the dachshunds around the block for a brisk walk. Then we headed over to my sister's place to drop off a cooler full of elderberries my dad had grown and was giving her. She was working, so we left them on her doorstep.

Then we headed for a YUMMiLICIOUS lunch at a new Asian Fusion restaurant in town. My first time there. I really liked the seaweed salad, the little shrimp dumpling things which name escapes me, my own incredibly flavorful salmon teriyaki with sweet potato and the ginger ice cream. Small servings, but packed with flavor, every bite.

Before they left, I gave my dad a large, two-tiered copper fountain with a recirculating pump which I spent a mint on a number of years ago, but hadn't used since a mouse chewed through some plastic tubing that connected to the pump. My dad could easily fix that, I just am too busy, plus I now prefer solar fountains that don't have to be plugged in. So I made some extra room in my garage. I think he'll enjoy it and it would look nice near his koi pond.

So I'm back in business with my wheelbarrow AND my Internet AND some freelance work.

Tomorrow, as it turns out, Jule & Julia, which I'd so wanted to see but never got around to, is now playing at my town's $2 theater, so we'll see the 4:30 pm showing. Cool!!

I used up my surplus mushrooms on a homemade pizza using Naan bread instead of the usual Boboli crust. It was very good, with tomato sauce, the mushrooms, some chopped up ground turkey and feta cheese on top.

I'm so relieved. Life is good. I'm back online.

Yesterday was such a nice day that I ended up doing a fair amount of yardwork, and housework.

I raked and mowed up a bunch more leaves, this time raking them out from underneath shrubs and trees. In the past I left these leaves in place becus i thought it protected the plants from the cold, but I was reading somewhere that it provides shelter for mice, and I get plenty of those each winter. Plus everything in my yard is mulched, so i think the plants have enough of a winter coat to make it through the season.

A few nights ago, in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, I heard coyotes howling. Very primal sound.

I also vacuumed, up and downstairs and did some tidying up.

I'm glad I did (often i let it go way too long and cat hair is everywhere) becus around 3:30 pm, as I was sweeping up yet more leaves from my driveway, who should pull up my driveway but an old fisherman!

Well, actually, it was my dad, but he had grown a full beard (a remnant of when he got a bad cold) and it's all white so he looks like the fisherman on the cough drops bags. Or maybe the guy from the Gorton's seafood commercials.

It was funny that they came becus I'd been thinking of him and K. a lot, since my last phone conversation with them.

Anyway, he and K. had been to visit my sister and plant some mums with her and popped in on me afterwards. My sister passed on dinner with them, but I gladly accepted the invitation to my dad's favorite restaurant around here, a German restaurant that does a brisk business.

My dad noticed I was collecting the sweepings of leaves on the driveway into a little red child's wagon becus my workhorse, the wheelbarrow, had acquired a flat tire. I had no idea how to fix it, or even remove the flat tire. I knew I couldn't even buy a new one becus there's no way I could fit it in my Honda.

So dad took it all apart quick as a flash and we stopped at 2 hardware stores on the way to dinner to look for a new tire, but both were closed, it being late Sunday afternoon. I asked him for the one part back he had taken with him, and he told me he was taking it home and would find a better tire for me and return with it to finish the repair in a few days. How many people would drive 6 hours round trip for such a little thing? That's my dad. Being a single, inept woman with very little do-it-yourself skills, I am eternally grateful.

Dinner was very nice, but the prices still shock me. Dinner for 3 including my dad's glass of wine ($8) and a shared dessert came to $105 before tip!!

Ever on the lookout for ways to generate a little cash, I am planning on on taking the exam that enables you to become a census taker. It also requires 4 days of training, but it's paid, and by the way, they pay quite well. In my area, $17 an hour. It would mean 5 to 10 weeks of work, most likely in my own hometown, 20 to 40 hours per week in the spring of 2010.

Today I'm also heading over to the Registrar of Voters and will sign up to be a poll worker, just for a day this spring at our town's referendum. That also pays, but not nearly as well as the census work.

Hopefully this week I'll be hearing more about what the real estate blog job entails.

I love this old cemetery. It dates back to the 1700s.

As the days of joblessness wear on, I've begun to have difficulty distinguishing between one day and the next. A weekend day is much the same as a week day. And, no longer being bound by the 9 to 5 clock, I find myself working at the computer any time of day or night.


This picture is so beautiful to me. I love those magnificent old cedar trees and the old gravestones. Doesn't' this look like a scene out of the Bible, where Jesus talks to the disciples in a grove or something?

This morning I figured I would kill a few birds with one stone. Oh, I hate that expression. About killing birds. Let's just say I was multi-tasking. I decided to squeeze in more exercise toward my weekly quota on this, the last day of the week, by walking to the library to return 2 DVDs, and then across the street to the Episcopal Church craft show.

What business do I have going to a craft show when I have no income? None at all. I considered it a form of cheap entertainment, with strings attached. The strings are the risk I'll buy something, and I did.

You see, I'm getting to the point where I'm living so frugally, I end up feeling deprived. When I start feeling deprived, I end up spending frivolously.

Well, it was just $10. What kind of ring can you buy for $10, anyway? Well, i think it's very nice. Sterling silver with a topaz-looking blue stone, but it's not real. I don't care, it just was the bluest blue that caught my eye. (As I said in a previous post, appearance, not cost, matters to me when it comes to jewelry....although this is the first time I bought something that wasn't a real gemstone.)

I tried taking a picture of it but it just wasn't working. So anyway, I will have to remind myself about that $10 ring for the rest of November as I live inside a chilly, dark house where I try to keep the heat down and the lights off.

After the craft show, i decided to walk a little further, to the supermarket, to pick up one more package of mushrooms. I want to make my mushroom/barley casserole, and it calls for 3 cups of mushrooms. I had already bought 2 packages yesterday, and now I'm kicking myself because I don't think I needed the third package after all. Three cups of sliced mushrooms will use up less mushrooms than those sitting whole in the container.They aint' cheap, either, at $2.79 a container. I also picked up the largest acorn squash I'd ever seen, as well as a bag of brown sugar and some feta cheese.

I added 45 minutes of walking to my weekly quota, but I'm still shy 20 minutes for this week, and it's turned dark as I've been writing this post.

Once back home, I made a very easy but delicious chicken dish. I laid 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts on a bed of stuffing consisting of breaded cubes, diced onion and celery and a couple cans of cream style corn. The chicken is painted with a mix of brown sugar, mustard and melted butter.

Yum, yum.

I also made a pumpkin pie which, with 1.5 cups of light cream, is not exactly low cal, but it's oh-so-good.

That was the extent of today's accomplishments. As the days wear on, I find I'm doing less and less, often because I can lazily tell myself, well, if you don't get it done today, you can do it just as easily tomorrow.

Hmm.

Just got some email from one of my oldest and best freelance contacts. He asked me if I'd be able to write a monthly real estate blog for him...just one post a month, on an ongoing basis.

Yes, yes! I said. Can't wait to hear the details.

I picked some lettuce in the garden this afternoon. the leaves are small, but the plants are still alive and well, though we've had some frosts already.



I took a long, 85-minute walk around town this morning, and picked up litter along the way.

Also did a load of laundry. I looked down my dryer filter, and yes, there was lots of lint stuck on the sides of it. I was able to get my hand down the chute and clean some of it, but i will need to get that brush that Lux told me about. Sort of trying to defer all nonessential costs, especially after being forced to spring ($73) for 2 ink cartridges for my Dell printer. Outrageously expensive. And it's the kind of expense i overlooked when calculating my unemployed budget.

I had my interview yesterday in Hartford at the agency that finds temp jobs for writers, designers and other creative types. But before seeing "Rich" to discuss things, I had to complete a gauntlet of forms, paperwork, and a little computer quiz to satisfy all their requirements. (Hate that stuff.)

Rich seemed pleasant enough, although personally I found the interview a little dull. He really didn't delve into anything too deeply, just did a perfunctory review with me of each of the jobs I've held.

He seemed to feel they could get me some work. I asked what % of applicants get work through them and he said only 4 out of 12 or so, which surprised me somewhat. It sounded like the people who are good get repeat assignments.

We talked a fair amount about compensation. He said several times that employers are paying less now in this economy than they did while things were booming. I have to wonder, though, if the agency's strategy of offering up employee temps for a lower hourly figure to win the client's business only hurts the employee, not the agency nor the employer. Cus whatever hourly rate I make, I can be sure the agency has already taken their cut, right? And the employer is getting a discounted rate.

I've worked for this group once before. It's basically a take it or leave it offer. They tell you the pay, and you can either accept or decline. They also tell you next to nothing about the company or the job, so you really have to be on your toes and do what you do well, IMO. Becus unlike a regular employee, you don't have a chance to get to know the company or its products over a period of weeks or months, or get training from coworkers. You just have to be able to dive right in, be confident that you know what you're doing and do it well.

I remember declining one or two temp jobs years ago becus they were just too far away or I wasn't confident it was the kind of work I could do, and i'm guessing now that even if I had a legitimate reason, declining even one job made the agency less inclined to call me back again with other jobs. I think there's a point where you go from being a hot, new job candidate they want to market to one they pass over becus you're too fussy or particular.

So I'll have to be cautious in that regard. The one job I did for them years ago was a proofreading job at a book publisher about an hour away from me, on the shoreline. It lasted for a few weeks, as I recall. I never got a lot of feedback about my work and I assume it was ok. It was pretty basic work and didn't exactly give me a chance to showcase my expertise, but it was a paycheck.

While the agency often stresses that hey, if they love your work, they may want to hire you full time, it doesn't always work that way.

If you've ever temped anywhere, you may remember how people may kindly ignore you becus 1. they know you're only going to be there for a little while, so why go out of your way to get to know someone, and 2. they assume that if you're a temp, your work background is inferior to theirs (so not true!) That's what I remember, anyway, from that one assignment.

I was annoyed to have to pay $9.50 in the parking garage for about 2 hours of time, but at least I can deduct that from my taxes, along with the gas it took to get up there and back.

I have a pretty light schedule for today and tomorrow. I need to go back to the tire place and get the free front-end alignment which i didn't get when i bought the tires becus i could've sworn that when i asked if it was included in the purchase price, he said "no," when in fact, it is. I went thru my car file records and couldn't find any evidence of having had the front end aligned for the past 6 years! So I guess I'm due. Oops.

I need to go for a LONG walk today as I'm falling behind on my exercise goal of 225 minutes of walking/biking/kayaking/mowing/raking each week. Those are the only activities that i feel are vigorous enough to warrant being counted toward meeting my goal. I have about 200 minutes to go and it's already Thursday!

I told my dad again when he called last night to expect me for Thanksgiving. I'm a little fearful about damage I can expect from Luther being on his own for 48 hours, but i guess I'll have to try to cat-proof the house before I go and hope for the best. Put breakables away, the toilet paper away, stuff like that.

I'll be excited to deposit about $1,100 in my checking account, from 2 unemployment checks and the money i got from selling my gold necklace.

I finally got around to selling my gold necklace. Let's make this fun. Here's the picture below. It's a Cleopatra style necklace, 14K and 11.6 pennyweight, tri-colored gold. Can you guess how much I got?



Let's put it this way: I got a LOT less than I was hoping for, but then again, I didn't buy it. It was a gift from an old boyfriend, someone I don't care to remember, a good 25 years ago. As I recall (I was with him and picked it out at a local Mall) he said it was marked for $500 and he got it for $300. So i figured after all this time, it should be more than $300. I was hoping for $500.

I went to 5 local jewelers. One wasn't in the store that day and the woman wanted to keep the necklace until the following day. I declined. Another jeweler said he'd also need to keep it overnight to "test" the gold, even though I showed him where it was stamped 14K. (If it's just 10K gold, it's not stamped, only 14K and 18K is stamped.)

So i really just got 3 prices. The 1st one was the best: $228. The 2nd was $200 and the 3rd was $187.

This is the price i got, not for resale as is but for melting down. (2 of the jewelers said the style, yellow, rose and white gold, was "dated." Didn't know jewelery styles could go in or out of fashion, but i guess they do.)

I know I could have gotten more money if I'd tried to sell it myself, like on eBay, but I just don't feel like learning how to sell on eBay.

I figured that with the vast majority of "stuff" you buy, very few of it is ever redeemable for cash once you purchase it. Sure, you can sell stuff on eBay or at a tag sale, but you're likely getting .50 on the dollar, right?. It seems like only jewelery or antiques can be converted back into cold, hard cash, so i felt fortunate to be able to take a piece I rarely wear, that, sitting in my jewelry box would always be a target should my home ever be robbed, and get enough cash to pay for a month's worth of groceries. I value a month's worth of groceries more than yet another doo-dad necklace.

The store that gave me the best price was the one that looked most reputable and upscale from the outside.

Unfortunately, I really have no other jewelery to sell. I have a few pieces, a strand of old pearls and a gold heart with 3 rubies, from my grandmother, and i would never sell those. The rest of my jewelery is not necessarily gold, nor expensive. I have jewelery that looks like very nice jewelery, but it's actually gold-plated over sterling silver and was thus inexpensive. i don't really care, the appearance is what counts to me, not how much was spent.
I voted today, did you?

And already it's 12:30 pm and i feel like it's time for a nap.

I did spend a good part of the morning painstakingly putting together my "top 10" writing samples for my Wednesday interview with the creative temp/perm hiring agency. I felt that I needed to write a few sentences of explanatory copy for each item to better describe its intended purpose and use. I had to rummage around in the attic for a few items, but it's all put together now, including my list of 4 vetted references.

A friend of mine, also out of work, called and encouraged me to join 2 local networking groups. Well, they're local to him, but a good 45 minutes to an hour away for me, as would be many of those jobs. These groups get 75 or 100 people, he said, so i think i need more practice at my small group before i move into the big leagues.

He also mentioned he's working the polls tomorrow and getting paid a modest amount, which is something I've wanted to do in the past, but couldn't, since i was working.

I had to interrupt our phone conversation to break up a fight between my 2 cats, which have been at it all morning, adding to my stress. I had to give Luther a time out in his carrier, which is where he is now.

I called my local registrar of voters and she said it's too late to sign up now, but i could sign up after tomorrow's election for the expected spring referendum. I will do that, and also see about any possible p/t, temporary jobs at the town hall.

I'm trying to get onto my college's job center, but they have to give you an ID number, so I'm waiting for that.

Just spinning my wheels.

I made a very good pumpkin black bean soup the other day.



Ingredients: sauteed onion and garlic, broth, pumpkin puree, tomatoes, black beans and, believe it or not, balsamic vinegar.Pretty easy to make cus much of it comes from a can. Psst. That's not wine in the glass. I've admired the way others (here and elsewhere) have photographed their food, so i thought i would go for an artsy look, but it's really just clear-colored birch beer (soda) in there

Some random photos:


The reservoir


Rotting tree and leaves


Local horse farm