I've only been at the job eight months, but the boss likes to keep everything on the same schedule for everyone, and July/August is a slow time for the business and most vacations are in August, so July for salary review it was. The boss said that they made the "right choice" in hiring me, that my strong points and my weak points are just as he anticipated when hiring me, with the weak point being getting me integrated into the Team, who have worked together for several years...I am the only new person in a group of 5, the last of whom joined about a decade ago. And I tend to be self-sufficient and reluctant to ask for help, and the rest of the Team hasn't really gone out of their way to get me up to speed, so it's something to work on on both sides. But generally, he is pleased with my progress, said that he hopes I finish my career with the company, and that he regards me as the firm's greatest "untapped asset," so all that is good. And I have a $2,500/year salary increase as of August 1. All in all, a good result.

Some interesting things to know if you are one of the people who, like me, is buying their own insurance from the healthcare exchanges and receiving an advance subsidy from the government to help pay for it:

1. If you received a subsidy this year that was directly paid to your insurance company, you MUST have your return filed by April 15th. No extensions--not even if you are missing crucial information like K-1s from partnerships etc. Your preparer will have to make a good faith estimate, note the number under question in a statement attached to the return, and file an amended return if needed. The IRS needs the return in order to calculate whether you received too much subsidy and need to return the advance payments, or whether you received too little and get a refund.

2. This January (or actually, for 2015, February 2) and every year henceforward, you (EVERYONE, not just people buying care off the exchanges) will receive a new tax information form to be brought to your return preparer with information about your health insurance. Most of these forms are numbered 1095 with a letter indicating whether the insurance was purchased through your employer or from other sources. Your preparer cannot file your tax return until you have your information form, so tax season will be delayed and abbreviated this season. Expect very harried tax preparers especially as tax season progresses. Also because of the additional work required to reconcile the information, potentially up to an additional hour per return, especially if your insurance changed during the year or if you had a coverage gap during the year, expect tax return costs to go up this year. On the other hand, you are much more likely to be able to avoid or minimize penalties if you are using a qualified tax preparer--and especially if you have a tax planning meeting before year end--so the value provided in return for the fee only increases. But if you are focused only on the cost, it will probably go up more than usual this year.

3. If your income changed during the year in any substantial way from the way you estimated it last year when signing up on the exchange, you should have gone on to healthcare.gov or your state exchange and updated your information during the year. Especially if your income went up substantially, you could lose the subsidy and have to repay it--even if your modified AGI was just one dollar over the limit for your filing status.

4. If you chose to remain uninsured this year, you will owe a penalty. The MINIMUM penalties rates are relatively low this year (the $95 Single minimum penalty number has been much bandied about) and will rise steeply over the course of the next two years, but if your income was a middle class income and you went uninsured, your penalty could be quite steep--up to 1% of income this year (going up to 2.5% by 2016), and capped for this year at $9800 (the national average price of a bronze plan for a family). Some taxpayers are going to be in for a nasty surprise.

5. Now here is something that I heard from a trustworthy source but which I find a little bit unbelievable, so take this with a grain of salt until I can find the IRS Regulation that governs it or else get my 2015 software installed and see it for myself: according to the lawyer who taught our update class, if you owe a penalty and have a balance due on your tax return, as opposed to a refund, you will not be assessed an extra payment for the penalty--they will be taking the penalty payments from tax refunds and will just wait until you have a tax refund year and take the money then. Again, I need to see this in writing before I believe it. UPDATE: Apparently, it's better to say that you WILL be assessed the penalty but they won't go after you if you fail to pay it and have a balance due. They'll just wait until you do have a tax refund year and grab the penalty then. Interest and penalties will continue to accrue until the penalty is paid. I still need to find the discussion of this in the Regs--I do like to be able to cite my sources.

6. The subsidies are now under Supreme Court challenge for those of us who receive the subsidy from Healthcare.gov, as opposed to from a state exchange. The Supreme Court on Friday accepted the King v. Burwell case, which challenges the legitimacy of subsidies received from the federal as opposed to the state exchange, since the governing law refers to "State" subsidies. Two different Circuit Courts decided differently on this issue, hence the Supreme Court acceptance of the challenge. TBD by June-yet another way the Right is trying to make the Affordable Care Act go away. Two-thirds of people would lose their subsidies if the word "State" is interpreted in the narrow rather than in the broad sense, making insurance unaffordable for them and effectively undermining the law.

When one door closes, another opens.

2013 was my transitional year, a year during which some doors closed.

2014 thus is to be my year of new beginnings, I hope.

Two big doors closed, or mostly so, during 2013.

The first had to do with my career. I started the year having been at a temp job for 7 months, hoping that it would turn permanent, which would have provided a nice salary and benefits and reasonably good job security and interesting enough work. This was not to be.

But ultimately I realized that this was a silver lining: while the job was interesting enough, it wasn't one I was passionate about, and also, working at a foundry greatly exacerbated my asthma.

By year's end I left the company and found a tax season position at a CPA firm. Although I had interviewed for four permanent jobs, I didn't land any of those, losing out in each case to someone coming directly from a CPA firm and with a bit more experience in public. I'm hoping that, with one more busy season under my belt and the CPA and EA in hand (EA arrived in December and I expect the CPA to be final in January) and a CPA firm back atop my resume, that I'll finally get the permanent job I seek.

And a job in public accounting, especially working with individuals and small businesses, will give me more of a chance to use what I know about psychology in my accounting career and thus will be more personally satisfying.

The second door that is closing in the near future is the door on my dear Teddy cat's life. He was diagnosed over two years ago as being in Stage Four kidney failure and given a prognosis then of 6 months to a year. He was started on a medication a few months in that greatly improved his condition, but he developed antibodies to that this past summer and had to be taken off of it. He stayed stable through the summer (when he was spending lots of time outdoors), but as the weather cooled, he began to fade. He has been going downhill quite rapidly since Thanksgiving and is now in the phase where every day I ask myself: is he eating? can I get him to purr? is he suffering? and I expect to lose him in the next week or so....there are no overt signs that he is suffering but his purrs are getting quite rare.

When he passes, this ends a nearly five year "hospice" period that started in August 2009 when my Henry Hound was diagnosed with cancer. I lost Henry in 2010, my mother in 2011, my Phoebe cat in 2012, and Teddy any day now.

It will be a relief to have this dark period of continual losses behind me.

Other than trips out to California during my mother's illness and passing and one long weekend back in 2011 to attend a family wedding, I have done no traveling in that period beyond a couple of daytrips each year that took me maybe 75 miles from home.

So after Teddy passes, I'll look forward to being able to do a little traveling again, and later in the year, after busy season, I'll start another "fur family," most likely with a pair of bonded cats. (Another basset hound, while much desired, is not practical at this point and will have to wait.

So, two doors pretty much closed in 2013, but in 2014 I hope to open the door to a full-time job with benefits and a new fur family and the chance to travel and expand my perspective, which has gotten overly narrowed due to all the crises on the home front.

Despite my poor kitty's imminent demise, I start this year feeling more optimistic and hopeful than I have in years.

I see that it has been nearly a year since I last posted, and I'm glad to see many familiar "faces" still here.

So here are the high (and low) lights of the past year.

1. On the job/career front: Making progress, but I am still seeking the "Holy Grail" of the full-time salaried job with benefits. Back in April, around the one-year mark at my temp job, I was told that it would not become permanent. Job-hunting time in my field peaks in Sept-Nov, so I had not applied for any jobs last year at this time in the hopes that the temp job would become permanent. Of course, I was disappointed not to get the permanent position, but I'm fine with it now. After some soul-searching, I realized that the private-company job, while intellectually challenging, doesn't give me any client interaction. The only interaction I have is with other team members, and that is actually pretty limited--maybe one meeting a week and one group lunch a month, and often less than that. I want the opportunity not only for the increased social stimulation, but for the chance to make use of my psychology background.

So now I am job-hunting again, looking to get back to a smallish public accounting firm (2-6 partners). I had two interviews with one firm back in July & August, but lost out to someone with more experience. Now I have two interviews with two different firms coming up this week.

I have also completed the CPA requirements (curtesy of Pennsylvania's changing a law which eliminated the requirement for one particular type of experience (audit) that I just couldn't get because all my accounting experience is in tax. So I will be sending in my license application later this week.

I have also gotten a decent grasp of business taxes and have passed the two hardest (of three) Enrolled Agent exams, so I expect to add that certification later this year, too.

2. I hired a personal trainer for 5 sessions in September & October to help me get started on getting back into shape. I'll pay for more sessions once I land the "Holy Grail" job, but at least I'm going to the gym again now. The job I've been at disrupted my old regular exercise routine, and I'm hoping this fall both to find a new job and along with it, start a new routine that gets me out & exercising first thing in the morning. I bought one of those "sunrise" alarm clocks and that is helping get me out of bed earlier as our sunrises occur later and later. I've also meditated fairly regularly (the free "Insight Timer" kindle app has been a great help) and I've been pretty consistent with a vegetarian/vegan diet, but I haven't worked hard enough at it to lose any weight.

3. I've had a decent enough social life, mostly with my congregation and secondarily with the vegetarian pot luck club that I joined a year ago. A friend came to visit for a long weekend over the summer, and I had one day-trip ride with friends along the Delaware River on my birthday, but otherwise, my free time has been at home, where I have spent loads of time sitting in the backyard, reading and studying, with my cat, Teddy. Teddy was diagnosed nearly two years ago with chronic renal failure, and back in April 2012, he was put on a medication that greatly helped his condition. He developed antibodies to that medication in May and was taken off of it June 1st. At that point I kind of expected that he would go rapidly downhill again and that I would lose him over the summer, but it's been a much slower process than I thought, so he is still with me. We celebrated 10 years together just this week. I still don't know if he'll make it to the new year, but now I at least think that's within the scope of possibility. Spending most of my free time with him has meant, however, that I don't do any traveling. I've had the "new" car over a year now and the furthest I've driven it has been about 70 miles away.

4. For the rest of the year, other than getting a new job and getting settled with that, I am hoping to finally turn my attention to getting my house in some order. I am praying that I am able to take two weeks between finishing at my temp job and starting the new gig, whatever that turns out to be. During the past year, I had 4-day weekends for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and 3 day weekends for Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day, and that's IT for time off--except for 2 sick days and 2 home repair days (which was time off I didn't get paid for--no personal time off on a temp gig). Saturdays are eaten up with commitments--vet appointments for Teddy, a 4 hour Enrolled Agent review class, and my personal training appointments, and Sundays are when I get to do laundry, go grocery shopping, clean and cook and do any extra socializing. That's just not enough time for me to keep things as neat as I'd like. Once upon a time, I was really pretty organized, but during the past 4 years of frequent job changes and helping three beloved pets and my mother through their final months, my ability to keep on top of my home life just vanished. Simply not enough time. I'm hoping to be able to manage enough time off within the next two months to make my home feel a comfortable place that I would like to invite people over to again. At the moment, it's not. So that, along with getting a job and getting back in shape, is on the top of my agenda for the rest of the year.

If you look at my goals for the past 3 years over on the sidebar, you'll see that I've just been repeating the same themes (essentially since I left my old career in 2009). I'm hoping to move on to the next stage with some of these by 2014.

I ordered a birthday present for myself today--a new car! The only more costly thing I've purchased is my house. (Well, my education cost more, in toto, but I was basically a scholarship student, so most of the money for my education didn't come out of my own pocket.)

I never really expected to buy a brand-new car, and certainly have never done so before. Each car that I've owned I've bought used, and and coincidentally, each has had a 14-year lifespan: the 1978 Volvo, purchased with nearly 100K at age 10 that I got rid of in 1992 due to too much rust; the 1988 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Station Wagon that I bought at about 4 years old with 70K that the insurance company totaled for me in 2002 after I was hit by a soccer mom who was paying more attention to her son in the back seat than the highway she was pulling out onto; and now the 1998 Subaru Forester, also bought at age 4 with 47K, that I am getting rid of because it has already cost me twice its remaining value in repairs this year, and I know of at least $1000 more worth of repairs that need to be done. I love the car, and would keep it, but it also so happens that we are beginning to close out my mom's estate and I have enough of a windfall to pay for it in full.

If all my cars last 14 years, this time I'll take the first four relatively repair-free years for myself, and try to make the car last 14 years--which will bring me about to retirement age by the time this one expires. Of course, I lose more on the depreciation--but that's just accounting lingo for spreading the cost over time to match with use, and if I keep the car, the greater bite on depreciation really doesn't make any difference--it would only matter if I were leasing it or planning to sell in just a couple of years.

I thought about replacing the old Forester with a new used one--I could get a 2010 used Forester for the same price as a new 2012 Impreza--but after thoroughly investing not only the cost of purchase but the cost of ownership, I found that the Impreza is about 20% cheaper all around--fuel, insurance, maintenance and repairs as well as initial cost, so that swayed my decision.

My Forester has had so many repairs since the beginning of the year that I've reserved it purely for going to work and doing the weekly grocery shopping. With a new car, I'll look forward to taking a road trip sometime this fall. A friend owns a cabin in the Adirondacks that she is always inviting me to, and this year, after all the stresses of the past few years (the career change with long bouts of unemployment, and losing my mom and two of my three pets), I'd really love to take another weekend away (I went to a family wedding near Boston last September, and that was my first vacation in years...I'd so love another short one this year).

My birthday comes in 3 weeks, and the car should be here between the 15th and the 28th, so hopefully by my birthday, and if not, very shortly thereafter!

Around the beginning of the year, I decided to refinance my house. I did look around at rates and found that I could get as low as 3.75% for a 20-year mortgages, but I actually ended up with a 4% loan, staying with my current mortgage company (and bank), Wells Fargo. They waived all the closing costs so it was actually cheaper this way.

So I cut my rate from 5.875% to 4%, and I cut my loan term from 24 years remaining on a 30-year mortgage to a 20-year mortgage, and I *still* will save about $50/month on the payment--pretty sweet.

I'll start putting that extra $50/month into retirement after I get my other debt closed out. No, I won't put it into the mortgage because I want to be more diversified.

**************************
This weekend was a quiet one (most are). It snowed yesterday, so I stayed in and spent much of the day reading. Today I spent reviewing my notes from a year ago on doing S-Corp returns. Now that I'm actually DOING them, things make more sense.

I also did a fair amount of cooking over the weekend...trying to make sure that I have food prepared for the coming week, because I'm very unlikely to cook mid-week. Yesterday, I made a nice tofu-veggie stirfry that I served over Kashi pilaf for lunch, and turkey burgers for dinner. Today, I roasted a butternut squash and cooked up a pound of swiss chard and made baked apples (plus had one of the turkey burgers) for lunch, and made a big pot of "stuffed cabbage soup" (similar ingredients to stuffed cabbage., just in soup form) for dinner.

We've finally turned the corner on mornings getting light earlier (though still it's well after 7 before the sun is really out), and it's staying light til after 5. The dark is really making me feel sleepy early this year, and I'm just not productive once it's dark. I'm looking forward to having more light soon.

The gold standard toward which I aim, as a disciple of YMOYL ("Your Money or Your Life," by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robbins) is "F.I.," financial independence, the point at which you can live off your investment earnings (plus any Social Security that you qualify for, once you reach retirement age). That generally takes retirement savings (a.k.a. investment capital) of 12 to 15 times earnings...so that someone who earned 50,000 a year would need to have 600-750K in order to consider retiring.

So a useful year-end metric is not just to look at percentage earnings, but at how much money your money earned. That actually matters more than the percent. If that number looks like income that you could live off of (or could live off of supplemented by the social security you can expect to get), you have a sense of how close to F.I. you are.

I sat down and did that calculation. This past year, my investments (basically my retirement accounts) earned me about $5000. Not hardly enough to live on, but it's a start.

but I'm about to drag myself out to the two Christmas Eve parties I've been invited to.

I've spent most of the past two days reading "Your Money Ratios," analyzing my annual expenses, and thinking about refinancing, and the Scroogey part of me would be perfectly content to stay here doing that.

But I am forcing myself into a bit of congeniality, and even went and bought some small gifts for some of the neighbors and handed them out and did a little visiting this afternoon. Good for maintaining good relationships with the neighbors, which I value.

Tomorrow, I *will* have the day to myself, and I'm planning on *finally* putting this place in some decent order to give myself a little feeling of peace and refuge when I arrive home. At the moment, I have to put blinders on to get that.

I'm Jewish, so this holiday doesn't mean anything to me, and my focus is really on getting organized and motivated for the new year.

And maybe I'll treat myself to a movie tomorrow afternoon. We used to do that when we were kids sometimes on Christmas Day. Anyone know anything decent that's playing?

Teddy, my last remaining pet of the three I had two years ago, was diagnosed with chronic renal failure after I came back from my weekend away at Thanksgiving. He's now on subcutaneous fluids twice daily, and hopefully can have 6-12 more months. He's only 10, and I thought I'd have him longer than that. Poor Teddy Bear.

I read an article recently about how much better pet insurance is now than it was a decade ago. Too late for Teddy, but has anyone had some good experiences with it? Something to look into before the *next* pet.

Goals & Results for 2010

Goal: 1. Finish the CPA exam and the EA exam. Find a real self-supporting accounting job. Results: CPA exam--passed! EA part 1, passed. Working part time at a CPA firm and for 4th quarter at a doctor's office too. But no job that is full-time and self-supporting yet.

Goal: 2. Continue regular exercise with an eye towards weight loss. I walked 285 fitness miles in 2009...hoping to increase this to 365 in 2010. Also need to add in strength training at least twice weekly. Results: Walked 205 miles (didn't walk during two crisis months with Henry & my mom). No real strength training effort.

Goal: 3. I will focus on eating fewer prepared foods and smaller portions with an eye to both losing weight and trimming my food budget. Results: I made progress here--switched to Dr Fuhrman's "Eat for Life" plan in mid-Sept and have lost 19 pounds since Jan. 1 of 2010. I'll have to check how this affected the food budget...I don't really think it is down substantially.

Goal: 4. Do my own "happiness project" to combat the depressive tendencies that come with long-term unemployment and dealing with two dear family members facing terminal illness. Results: I made sporadic efforts and have at least avoided outright depression--mostly because I have been working part-time all year, much better for my mental health than total unemployment. Also a friend of mine whose grandson is dying of cancer and I partnered to form a strong mutual support network and check in on each other regularly, especially when one of us knows that the other is dealing with a rough patch, and this helps.

Low points of 2010: Henry's death; mom's landing in the hospital and then nursing home and realizing how serious her illness was.

High points of 2010: Landing the part-time job at the CPA firm; passing the last of the four CPA exams.

Goals for 2011 are the same but the plans and strategies are different.

One of the things that I appreciate about David Bach is that he usually offers his latest book for free for one day each book release. Today's the day. His latest book is "Debt Free for Life." Go to http://www.walletpop.com/david-bach to get your copy.

I haven't read it but I have appreciated his advice in the past.

Happy 5770! It's the Jewish New Year, and New Years is always a good time for a new start.

I haven't posted here in over six months but will try to post more regularly as I am struggling financially, and otherwise, right now. So far there's still money in the bank, and I have my health, so things could be a lot worse. But I am hoping for a turnaround in my fortunes this year, and in particular, successful entry into a new career. This is NOT the job market that existed when I first went back to school 5 years ago to get training in a different field, but it IS the job market I have to deal with today, so I'm busy trying to figure out networking, and still in shock over the reality of being unemployed.

Hopefully the new year will bring some positive changes.

Yes, I've actually been buying coupons--but coming out better for it in the end, as long as I remember to use them--which I will.

Before I started couponing about a month ago, I never realized that people actually sell coupons on ebay. Actually, they don't sell the coupons themselves (I guess that is illegal)--all the sellers say that the coupons are free but you are paying for their time in clipping the coupons.

Buying coupons actually makes sense if you have a product that you use that (a) you won't accept a substitute brand for; (b) the product is relatively expensive; (c) you buy a large quantity of the product; and (d) either the coupons have no expiration date OR the product is non-perishable and you have storage room. The latter two requirements are because the sellers sell the coupons in batches, typically six or ten or twenty of the same coupon. Also, (e) the coupon should be for a high amount off.

I've done this for 3 products: my brand of soymilk (I drink Silk Unsweetened and will ONLY drink that brand; all the others taste bad to me; also, I drink at least a gallon of it a week); my dog's brand of premium dog food; and my brand of tampons (again, I'll ONLY use that brand). In each case, the coupons I bought were for either 1.50 or 2.00 off, so the discount is substantial. The soy milk coupons have no expiration date, and the other two have expiration dates but my dog eats a can of dog food a day, and the tampons will last ad infinitem so can be stockpiled. In buying coupons for a month's worth of dog food, a year's worth of soy milk, and a year-plus worth of tampons, I've saved--after the cost of the coupons--about $150. If I can couple the coupons with a sale (which I can in the case of the tampons), the savings will be even more. Not a bad profit for an hour's effort--once I figured the strategy out!

I'm getting ready to travel to my mother's this week--my first plane trip in two years. My sister has flown recently, so she brought me up to date on all the new carry-on regulations--glad I learned about that *before* going to the airport.

I also checked out the size of my old carry-on and found that it was a couple of inches bigger than regulation. Most of the time that might not matter, but I figure in this day of packed flights and charging for baggage, they'll be more likely to check. Anyway, I found a carry-on that's within limits on sale for 51% off at the LL Bean outlet--because the color is being discontinued. So I was happy with that find, especially as my mother is aging, and I figure that at some point in the foreseeable future I will probably have to do a great deal of cross-country flying back and forth.

That's on my mind as I've been witnessing first-hand the decline of an elderly man in my congregation who has been ill this year. I had visited him (and his wife, who was also hospitalized at the time) in hospital on New Years, and then three weeks ago heard that he was in hospice. So I was very surprised a few days ago to hear that he and his wife would be hosting Shabbat services at their assisted living facility this past Friday night.

I went, and Frank was in much better shape than he had been the last I saw him, though the change in his appearance was shocking compared to that of just a year ago before illness took its toll. He seemed in good spirits, and I was hopeful that he would have a while yet.

But it turns out that that Shabbat service was a good-bye. I received word by email that he died in his sleep last night. I know that he suffered a lot this last year, but I'm glad that his last Shabbat was such a pleasant one.

It seems so odd, to be going to a service hosted by a fellow on Friday and then to his funeral on Monday.

So here we are, already half-way through 2008!

Time to take stock.

I've posted my goals on the sidebar, and so far, I'm not terribly happy with my progress. I really doubt that I'll either save 15% of my income OR lose 15% of my weight in 2008.

So far, I've saved about 5% of my income. This is far less than planned. On the other hand, one thing that I did not really take into account sufficiently in setting my goals is that I suffered a fairly big salary cut (17%) back in September. I'm still getting used to living on a reduced income. I did well at saving last year because I had more income. Now I'm living on less income *and* prices are higher--yet I've still managed to save *something*. So I really should be happy about the savings that I *do* have.

I did have some "extra" expenses during the first half of the year (medical bills, a plane ticket, and $560 worth of textbooks for courses I am taking), but I'll probably have about equal "extra" expenses during the second half, as I am having a home repair done, and need to take my car in for inspection. There's usually about one $300-$500 car repair bill during the year and I haven't had one yet, so I won't be surprised if something of that size needs doing in July when I get the car inspected.

Food costs haven't decreased at all--not surprising given inflation but there are still some bad habits I can improve on. I'm going to try to be more mindful of them as the year progresses. If I can make some changes habitual over the summer when my workload is lighter, perhaps some of that will carry on through the fall.

Weight loss isn't happening--I *did* lose 9 pounds during Jan and Feb, then gained it back in the interval since then. Going to try to lose it again during July and August.

Career change progress, mortgage paydown, and investing are going reasonably well. The market is down horribly as are my retirement assets, but I'm in for the long-haul so not panicking over short-term decreases. I *do* think we're in a recession, but recessions don't last forever. The economy will turn up at some point and I'll be in the market to take advantage of the increase when it does.

I've decided to change my original summer plans. The original plan was to take one summer school evening class and to find an accounting internship during the day, as I don't have any actual accounting experience, just 3/4s of an undergrad accounting major completed (this is a post-BA certificate; I already have a Ph.D. in another field but after 20 years have given up on getting tenure in academia; hence the career change).

Alas, I really dropped the ball on getting an internship--it's something I should have gone after in February and March. But I didn't. The past two years, I've been working one full-time teaching job at a day college, a part-time teaching job at an evening college, *and* have been taking a class a semester, too. It's an intense schedule and so I didn't get around to applying for the internships when I should have. So I told myself, well, there's "Accountemps," or I can try asking a couple "friends of friends" with small local CPA offices if I could do some work for free.

The school semester ended in mid-May, and I spent the first two weeks after getting life organized around the house--housework and home maintenance are relatively low priorities given all the other stuff, and some things were in need of attention. Then my summer school evening class started. But as we got into June, I began feeling like it was really late to ask for a summer internship. I also was feeling panicky about the fall, when I am currently scheduled to take *two* classes on top of my usual full-time plus part-time teaching load. One has really been as much as I can handle, and I even had to take an incomplete on one last fall. So I've been feeling as though the fall will be an impossible task, but I contacted the instructors and got hold of the textbooks ahead of time and said to myself, "maybe I can do this if I get most of the reading done ahead of time." But that reading takes time, of course.

To shorten an overly-long story, I've given up on the internship idea for the summer. Instead, I am going to take a second course for credit that starts via distance learning on Monday. I may take a third class as well (during the evening in second summer session), albeit one that is not a requirement, so I may audit it rather than take it for credit. And, so I start getting out there in the accounting marketplace, I am going to contact one or two of those "friends of friends" and do some informational interviews and seek mentoring. The actual accounting work is going to wait.

This plan will make things financially tighter--I have my base salary coming in, but no second-job salary, so my income is down 23% for June, July, & August from what I'm used to. And there are some big expenses coming up that may require me to dip into my savings. I'd been planning on some income from an internship to replace some of that second-job income. But the new plan *greatly* reduces the panic I've been feeling, and it will make the fall much more do-able, as I'll only have to take one class on top of the full-time & part-time jobs, and I know I can handle that. Plus now I can think more seriously about visiting my mom sometime this summer, during July or August.

This weekend has been the antithesis of last, much quieter and laid back. Good thing, too, as I am exhausted and have been for several days.

Friday I was too tired to cook but the contents of my fridge weren't inviting, so I went to my favorite little Korean restaurant, where Kim cooked me a lovely 5-course Korean meal for $12 (dumplings, soup, a selection of 4 salads & kim-chees, chicken & rice, and vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries & kiwi for dessert). It was too much to eat so I took the leftovers with me and dropped by my BF's on the way home--I left the leftovers with him for a snack and he made me a cup of coffee). (I'd invited him to eat with me, but he'd already eaten by the time I called). I got home around 8:30, watched an hour of TV, talked to my mom on the phone, and went to bed by 10.

Saturday I mowed the lawn first thing, went to the vet to pick up Henry's prescription food, then stopped by the gardening center and got some weed block cloth for the foot-wide weedy patch of dirt under the fence on the north side of the yard.

I got the existing weeds out as well as I could with my limited assortment of tools (I'm sure there must be better tools, but I have no idea what they would be; I grew up in L.A. where every middle-class family (except those with teenage sons) hires a gardener to do the yardwork), and I cut and pegged down the weedblock cloth. It's a bit messy, as every physical thing I do tends to be, but I'll get some mulch to cover over and hide the messiness. (I love the *idea* of being self-sufficient, but not the implementation; I have little patience and even less knowledge when it comes to doing anything but the most basic of physical tasks--and I often struggle with the most basic as well.)

I also spent two hours yesterday ensconced in my favorite activity: browsing at the bookstore. I buy a cup of coffee and find an armchair in the coffee shop and browse to my heart's content.

Last night DBF and I had take-out Chinese and again I crashed early.

This morning, I did a few errands (grocery, fill up the tank, deposit $$ at the ATM) and chores (dishes, vacuuming, cooking). It's now 6 pm and I'm hunkering down to do some grading of exams. I really don't know where the day has gone; I DO know that I'm exhuasted again and feel pretty much ready for bed right now!

After the grocery trip and filling the gas tank, I think I am done spending for the month, barring any unforeseen emergency, and am coming in at $2206, close to what I spent in February. That's good as it allows me to put a bit of money away.

My take-home full-time salary is about $2600/month, and I've been working a part-time job as well to bring in another $700/month, but I'm not sure if I'll have any extra income this summer.

I have to prioritize my summer projects:

Furnace yearly servicing $109
Have the roof silvercoated (?$200-$400)
Replace the gutters ($600-800)
New eyeglasses (~$400-500)

Hopefully I'll earn enough this summer to at least cover these additional expenses.

One nice thing is that my Mom called today to tell me that she's getting me an early birthday gift (my birthday comes at summer's end). I had been talking about maybe getting a grill for my backyard this summer, and she went and ordered me one that should arrive this week, so that's one item on the summer expense list crossed off already!

What a busy weekend this has been! Started off Friday with a "date" with my BF. He treated me to dinner at a Chinese restaurant that opened near him about a year ago; it was a bit expensive but really, really good (and has won an award as one of the Top 100 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.).

Saturday morning there was the annual undergraduate research conference in my field at the nearby U.; I went to hear the keynote speaker and cheer the students on and see a few colleagues from other institutions. Then a quick trip to the grocery store and home to do some chores and walk Henry and cook my contribution for the night's seder. The seder was fun--my friend who invites me every year purchased a small farm 1.5 years ago and is raising llamas. The seder was nice but went on a bit long for my taste. The hostess wanted to sing every song in the book, just about. I agree that a seder should be a leisurely meal, but 2-2.5 hours, not over 4 (the point at which I left) is more to my taste.

Today I pulled the lawnmower out of the basement and did the first mow of the season after first cleaning up the yard of sticks etc. The grass was actually a bit long for a first mow so it was slow going. I also did another grocery shopping trip (yesterday's was mostly for my seder dinner contribution) and stopped at BJs, and at home I'm doing laundry and cleaning and working on data analysis for a dozen undergrad projects.

I'm supposed to go out to another seder tonight but I really don't want to--I have a test to grade as well that I'd really like to have off my back. Not quite sure what I'll be doing yet.

Oh, and of course there was yesterday's hour-long talk with my sister (who was at Mom's, while Mom was out grocery shopping, which means another hour today talking to Mom).

One thing I'm NOT doing today is going to Hillary's talk at the local H.S. a mile away. I've already heard Bill in person, and Barack, and I've made up my mind. If she had come a month earlier, I might have gone. Bill has been in the area 4 times, Chelsea at least twice, and now Hillary. All I can say is that I was really frustrated by Tuesday's debate and the way the moderators emphasized trivial questions for the first half. I don't watch TV much so I've missed the barage of TV ads, but my mailbox has had 1 or 2 mailings from Obama every day this week. I'll be glad to get the PA primary over with. Back in January the local paper was hosting a "Pretend your Vote Matters" poll on its website and PA has turned out to be anything but that!

It's going to be a loooonnnnggg time until November.

************************************

On the spending front, so far it looks good for my coming in with another ~2000 spending month, but there's still 10 days to go. I did buy a couple of books cheap at BJs plus ended up buying an 8 gig thumb drive to transfer a bunch of files from home to work since my DVD burner won't burn disks (but plays them fine), so there have been a few extras but not too many.

I've already planned to buy some Earth Boxes for container gardening and a barbeque grill for my back porch next month. This is my third year in the house and every May I buy something to liven up my outdoor living space. Other than a concrete bench for under the dogwood, this will complete the annual May outdoor buying spree, I think. My two porches and my lovely small backyard are one of the favorite parts of my house, and this is the only area where I've splurged and bought things mostly new rather than used.

I've had two no spend days in a row the past two days--yay! And the scale reached a new low (for the recent span of time) this morning. I was hungry hungry hungry today, so it'll probably take me a week to regain that number. Didn't do huge damage--just ate the number of calories that I ate last year. One day won't do damage but daily eating at that level puts the weight right back on. I rationalized it by telling myself that I needed to let my body know it wasn't starving because of the lower calorie intake of late--when your body figures that food is scarce, it lowers the metabolic rate.

When I got home from work I had a phone call from the Dean of the Evening College I teach at. The upshot of it is that a student needs an independent study in order to graduate in May. I agreed to supervise. It means an hour weekly meeting (plus a couple extra to catch up since we're now in week 4 of the term) and a bit of additional grading, and $600 extra bucks (before taxes) in my pocket this term.

Final thought: Maybe that was a gift from Dad (who passed in 1990). I maintain a pretty rationalistic approach to my spirituality, but sometimes it's fun to indulge. Today would have been my father's 90th birthday. It's just nice to think that he's celebrating by giving his family gifts. Makes me a bit sad, too--although I was 28 when he died, I still feel like he didn't get to know me as a "real grown up." I hope he'd be proud of how I turned out. He was always a button-bustin' papa, so I'm sure he would be.

Knowing that I have a job in hand through summr of '09 (the point at which I finish my accounting studies and am ready to move on to the new career), I felt like celebrating this weekend. It worked out well that I already had an out-of-town visitor scheduled, a trip rescheduled from before-Christmas. I spent Saturday morning doing some grocery shopping and tidying up, and Donna arrived around 2. After hanging out at home for an hour, we went to a nearby town having a "SnowBlast festival" to look at the ice sculptures. I drove her home past my workplace and with a stop at the Farmer's Market. Our Farmer's market is open Thurs, Fri, & Sat. If I go, it's usually Thurs or Fri since I work nearby. I hadn't realized that on Saturday the hour or so before closing, the merchants steeply discount their wares, since they don't want to have to pack them up again. It might be worth the occasional Saturday trip in the future.

In the evening, DBF came over to join us for dinner, which I cooked (salmon with Asian stirfry veggies in a citrus-soy sauce over brown rice). Donna and I split a bottle of wine (DBF abstained). I got quite the buzz on and paid for it later that night. A drinker I am not.

Today we puttered around home until 10:30, then went to Granny's Tearoom for brunch, and to the local bookstore and a couple of giftstores, all along Main St, to browse. The tearoom had a special whereby they were selling Windsor teapots for $10 if you bought some tea; so I picked up a package of white tea with blackcurrent and a cobalt blue teapot, as I have recently switched from coffee to tea as my default drink of choice. I also bought a book on Green Housecleaning at the bookstore since it seemed to have some very useful tips when I browsed through it.

After we got home, Donna left, and I ended up puttering around the rest of the day--went out to Lowe's and bought a new trash can since one of my two finally split completely down the middle last week, and otherwise hung around and drank tea (plus I did one of my in-home walking tapes so I'd get some exercise).

Tomorrow I have off from teaching, but it will be a work-at-home, preparation for the workweek day. Now that I know that my plans are in place for the next 1.5 year's it's time to stop worrying and blast full-speed ahead!

Today's the end of my vacation--the only time all year that I have time to do more than catch up on sleep and laundry (given that my schedule is that I work a full time job, a part time job, and I go to school part time--I used to have more "fun" on my vacations when I "just" worked full-time; now it's just recovering from exhaustion). During my month off, I didn't manage to do anything like go to a movie or take a daytrip to Philly, but I did browse at the bookstore half a dozen times, and, more productively, I did a lot of cleaning and reorganizing at home, and I got myself started exercising regularly again and lost about 5 pounds. Those things feel good.

When I manage to get myself to the point where I "just" have one full-time job (ideally as of June 2009), I'll have to start planning for a "real" vacation--maybe in December of 2009. The last time I took a week off and traveled anywhere was my obligatory trip home two years ago. I can't even remember the last time I went anywhere for more than a weekend just for fun--it's been about 10 years.

Good thing I've only got a year and a half more on the "work full time and part time and go to school" plan. I'm beginning to get burned out.

*****
As for my last day of vacation--well, I spent the morning finishing the kitchen reorganization project, and making applesauce and braised cabbage (yesterday I made Chicken Cacciatore, so I have some food laid away for the week ahead) and the afternoon doing syllabi for one course. Tonight I really should finish the other syllabus, but I think I'm going to bed early, since we're expecting some amount of snow (2" to 5") and I'll have to dig out before the morning commute.

Here's how I spent my New Years Day: in the morning, I went over to my friend Anne's for tea and a chat. We made a plan to walk on Tuesday & Thursday mornings at 6 from now on. This is great because one thing I have learned about myself is that I am most consistent with my exercise when I make it a social commitment. Also Anne lives only half a mile away, which makes it easy. I lost my last walking buddy when I moved from the next town over. We kept up our walks for the first year after I moved, but it was a lot easier to skip a walk when we each had to drive 5 miles to meet, and eventually things fell apart when our schedules changed. Now I'm going to approach my next-door neighbor about walking, too--we'd briefly discussed it over the holiday. It will be twice as good to have *two* nearby walking buddies--get me out there twice as often!

When I went home and checked my email, I learned from my rabbi that an elderly couple in our congregation were both in the hospital today, and eager for visitors. I decided to go, since I can remember how much I appreciated visitors the time that I was hospitalized for 7 weeks. I ended up spending three hours visiting with the wife and just talking to the husband (who's in a different wing) over the phone. She ended up taking a trip down memory lane, and told me many stories from her younger years, which was fun since she's a person whom I didn't meetuntil she was 65 (she's 80 now). I was taken by her love for life and its pleasures. This is a woman who, after falling and breaking 8 ribs, did not want to miss the cioppino dinner that a friend was bringing over, so she had herself helped into a chair, laughed and talked through dinner (she said she was fine as long as she didn't move), took two Tylenol PM to get through the night, and then went to the hospital the next morning! She says she's glad that she did it as it has given her a good memory to savor during her stay. I hope I have as much lust for life when I am her age.

My boyfriend and I got together to celebrate the holiday last night. He brought over take-out Chinese and we exchanged gifts and watched a video. I got him a "Thera-cane," a device for doing self-massage and getting at one's "trigger points." We'd come across the device in a "Relax the Back" store in November, and he tried it in the store and said that it got out a tough knot. He's always complaining about pains in his back, shoulder and forearm (as a graphic designer, he spends too much time on the computer by necessity). I was so impressed with the device that I got one for myself and one for my mom, too. For my sister, I renewed a favorite magazine subscription of hers that I've been buying her for a few years now. As for what I got, well, Tom paid for the annual B.J.s Warehouse membership that we share, and he took home two of my dresser drawers that were broken to repair. (This is typical; I buy him things; he gives me gifts of help with home maintenance and repair that I cannot do on my own.) My mother sent me a check, and I told her that some of the recent clothes purchases and a book purchase I made earlier this month were "her gift" to me. My sister says that she has something for me, but, knowing her, I suspect that I'll receive it when next I visit her in L.A.

As for the big day itself, it was quiet. As I'm Jewish and don't really celebrate Christmas but rather "the holidays," spending the day alone was no big deal. I had originally planned to accompany my boyfriend to his parents, but he was concerned about some current family stresses and felt it might be better if I didn't come today. The day was sunny and relatively warm, so I spent a couple of hours finishing up some fall garden chores, another hour or so on the phone with my mother and sister out in California, and the rest of the time puttering about on the computer, making goals and plans for 2008 and tallying up my 2007 expenses. Now I'm about to sign off the computer and watch the second video that I rented yesterday.

So today was more like a lazy weekend day than like a holiday, but it's helping me renew my batteries after an exceptionally overybusy fall term.

I pulled out my winter boots a couple of weeks ago to find my two pairs not really usable. Both pairs are over 10 years old. The vibram sole on the dressier pair had just about collapsed, and the uppers are looking quite shabby. The uppers on my GoreTex insulated LL Bean boots are still in good shape even despite their age, but the sole has been worn down to be almost flat.

I am lucky enough to live near an LL Beans outlet, so I went there to figure out what to do for winter boots this year. I had thought about replacing the Bean boots, but I found a cheaper way around that--as I was in the checkout line, I spyed safety treads for ice fishing for $5. I bought those and put them on the Bean boots--they stay in place, unlike the much more expensive "YakTracks" that I had bought a few years ago. Now I have a way to shovel snow and pick at ice while having some traction, and it only cost $5. (I did buy some dressier snow boots for $60, too, to wear to work).

It looks like we're in for a bad winter, so it's good to have these purchases in hand early in the season.

Today I picked up my last set of papers to grade for the term. They were due yesterday, but with the ice storm we had, I didn't want to go out in the weather. (Neither did the students: half of them submitted their papers via email, and I had to spend half an hour printing them out.) Once I grade this set of 20 final essays and the 50 exams I gave on Wed., I'll be done for the term. I had hoped to finish today, but it will be sometime over the weekend.

A friend of mine was supposed to come down to visit me this weekend, but she postponed her visit for a month because of the storm that's supposed to hit the east coast starting tomorrow night, and her holiday plans that intervene after that. I'll look forward to seeing her, but we'll miss all the Christmas stuff. I live in Bethlehem, PA, and of course the town does Christmas up big time. It's fun to have a visitor for Christmas to share this with. Of course, I could go do some of it on my own, but it's just not as fun as having someone to share it with.

I'll look forward to getting my "nest" back in order over my winter break. The downstairs generally remains presentable, but piles of clutter build up here and there--in particular, a small desk I have in the living room has been unusable for months because of the piles of paper, and the top of the dog crate in the living room is my "active project" piling base and is getting to the paper-toppling phase.



Otherwise things look homey, especially with the bulbs I've been forcing: an amaryllis, paperwhites, and crocuses. With the bulbs and the two birdfeeders that sit out on the porch just beyond the windows in this picture, I have ample signs of life all winter long to cheer me up.

We had our first snow of the season yesterday, and that motivated me to get out and get some winter clothes shopping done. I stopped at the LLBeans outlet (we're lucky to have one!) in search of a coat that I thought I'd seen in their catalog, but to my chagrin (after having the salesclerk do a search and then finally going out to my car to get the catalog itself, the coat that I wanted turned out to be from Lands End. Oops! Beans does have a similar coat, and I tend to think the quality of their merchandise is superior, but I didn't like the colors offered, so I'll get the Lands End coat from Sears or from the catalog. I did buy 4 pair of SmartWool socks while I was there, and a matched red fleece scarf, mittens, and headband. I'm determined to get any shopping done before this holiday, as I traditionally avoid setting foot in the malls from Thanksgiving until after the New Years--I can't stand the crowds.

I've been saving up in my virtual "budget envelopes" for this clothing purchase for months, and I'm pleased that, after the LLBeans purchase today and the planned Lands End purchase tomorrow, I still have 39.50--just enough for the new fleece lined set of clogs that I spied at Beans today. For the past 6 years, I've been wearing the same old winter garb, and a secondhand winter coat passed on to me by my sister in a color that I wasn't really fond of, so it will be really nice to have new winter wear this season.

I'm a relatively new homeowner, and I'm completely clueless about home repair, home maintenance, etc. This will be my third winter in this house. The house is reasonably well insulated--I had it inspected before buying and there's good insulation in the attic. I was wondering though, about insulating the ceiling of the basement. I spend a lot of time sitting on my floor, and now that the weather's finally turned colder, I'm noticing how cool the living room floor is . I was wondering about putting some insulation in the ceiling so that the first floor floor stays warmer (and to perhaps reduce the heating gas bill--I pay about $1800 a year). Last year I put down rugs, but the dog ended peeing on them repeatedly, so I was thinking of trying to make the floor itself warmer. What kind of insulating material would I use and is this something that people do or is this an off-the-wall idea?

Because of the computer, an expensive week

grocery 159
dining 35
pets 272 (annual exams for 2 cats, with biannual shots)
dentist 190 (some of which will be reimbursed by insurance)
computer & accessories (keyboard protector, surge protector, VISTA book) ($150 expected back in rebate) 1040
Total spending: 1696

My computer is being "held hostage" in the shop over the holiday week (I completely forgot the 4th was a holiday, and they took the rest of the week off), so I haven't been able to log in except by going to the library.

Spending since 7/1

July 2
Grocery: 20.17

July 3
Drugstore: 18.96

July 4
Dining: 6.25
Video rental: 1.75
Total: 8.00 (nonessentials)

Then I've been in "holiday weekend" mode since this is the only weekend I have with no class commitments looming over me, so I've spent a bit the past few days.

July 5
Veterinarian: $10
Auto-fuel: $29.32
Total: $40.32

July 6
Dining: $11.00 (nonessential)

July 7
Clothing: $98.32 (a swim suit, a pair of summer clogs, a pair of water shoes, and a shirt) at the sale at LL Beans) (items worth $134 if not on sale, so I saved over 25%). Arguably nonessential, except possibly the swim suit (I discovered yesterday that the old one is unwearable) but I'll get good use out of it. Also tomorrow I'll spend $15 for an introductory kayaking class that Bean's offers. I do like living near one of their outlets!
Dining: $12.59
Total: 110.91

That's $209.36 of spending so far this month, $19 of which is clearly nonessential. But that's less than 10%, and I think the "extras" of the couple of meals out, the video rental (The Da Vinci Code), and tomorrow's kayaking trip will help give me a sense of having had a tiny bit of real vacation during this generally hard-working summer. Hopefully this little bit of getting off track will help me stay on better track the rest of the month.

Classes ended yesterday; now I just have two exams to administer and piles of papers and exams to grade, so that the academic year should wind up in about a week. I get a brief break of a week and then start teaching summer school (1 class) and taking classes (2, I think, presuming the two I want to take enroll enough students to run). I suppose if I don't take the two I'm planning on, I'll go over to the community college and enroll in more distance learning classes--but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, as the (4-year) college classes are not only better, but, since I've worked there for more than two years, I get to take them for free, while registering for two community college classes will cost about $800.

I started Weight Watchers just over a week ago and lost over 5 pounds the first week. Maybe eating less will lower my food bill eventually, but at the moment, it really helps to buy things that are precooked or prepackaged in small servings, plus my consumption of fresh produce has increased, so the food bill remains high for now.