I worked a full week last week to cover for the person who shares my job. I won't be paid any extra for doing so. Why am I okay with this?

It was part of the agreement I made with my manager at the start of the pandemic, after I began working from home. The deal was that I'd be paid a fixed weekly amount regardless of how many hours I worked. Billable hours don't include the time I wait for work and am essentially on call roughly 8 hours a day, 3 days a week.

The fixed weekly paycheck is roughly based on an 18-hour work week but I have never worked an 18-hour week since working from home.  I just checked my weekly average hours for 2021 to date and it's just 9.67 hours, so if you don't factor in time spent waiting for work (I do plenty of other things during this time), my hourly rate of pay is actually more than 50% higher than what it is on paper. 

Put another way, my typical work week includes 10 hours of work and another 14 hours sitting around waiting for work.  It's not that my employer is inefficient or disorganized; it's just the nature of my work and how the agency works that makes the work flow a little bumpy and uneven.

This is a contract job, so no benefits. Just a pretty sweet paycheck for which I am very grateful.

I'm looking forward to getting my 2nd vaccine shot a week from today. I am really looking forward to spending more time with friends I've been keeping at a distance, and, silly as it sounds, shopping at some of my favorite stores again in person. I've enriched Stop & Shop long enough. Aldi's and Trader Joe's, I miss you.

I already hit the $1,000 spending requirement in month 2 of my new US Bank Signature card, which will mean I'll get an easy $200. I'd prefer the cash, but would take it in gift cards if I have to.

I'm eager to get going on various home improvements this spring, as soon as I'm 2 weeks post-vaccines. My electrician is ready to come swap out my DR chandeleir, installing a "new" one I got from Buy Nothing and putting the small one that's there now in my office, in place of the ceiling fan, which is still something I use, but with the central air, it's less necessary, and I have other fans to use if needed.

I hope I won't regret doing that, but I still really like the current chandeleir and thought it would look cool in my office. I have fairly low ceilings, so he just needs to hang it so it's pretty flush with the ceiling so no one knocks their head into it.

So here's the exsting chandeleir. It's a bit small for a dining room.

And here is the new chandeleir:

The funny thing about this one is that it looks like it should have a 6th shade, but does not, so to me it looks a little assymetrical, which I guess is intentional.

This was actuallly the second chandeleir I was gifted from Buy Nothing. After getting the first one, I was afraid it was so huge it would overpower my small dining room, so I thought the second one would work better and I regifted the first one. I did, however, keep the cute little tassels that came from the first chandeleir to use with the second one.

The less interesting part of the electrician's visit would be to update some wiring by the circuit breakers, whch would protect all the wiring in my house if it were ever hit by lightening. This is something he advised I do probably 4 years ago.

My mason will also hopefully be stopping by this week. I want him to redo the concrete wall on the exterior of the north side of my house and also replace a small basement window on the south side. This is an old house and a lot of the basement concrete is crumbling. They redid one wall inside basement last year and did a GREAT job.

There are 3 or 4 other jobs I want to do but likely won't do all this year. All were on my lists in previous years:

1. Get a pergola so I can actually enjoy my patio more in heat of the summer. My nervousness and uncertainty about getting something installed that won't blow away in a hurricane is what has caused me to delay.

2. Replace hot water heater. It works fine, but it's at that age that's considered "average" life span.

3. Replace collapsing, rotting stockade fence that keeps me from having to see neighbors' renters zooming up and down his driveway, which goes past my back yard. I'm afraid this is going to be super expensive as it's a length of probably 100 or more feet. I'd probably stick with what I think is cedar fencing, as it lasted about 15 years, I think.

4. Replace upstairs bath vanity. It's totally needed. I have double sinks now and only want one sink in replacement vanity so I have extra counter space for all my plants. Eventually, I want to replace the current tub with a walk-in shower.