baselle's Financial Diary

Work has gotten a little quieter and I'm back to the two main projects. Still a little challenging but at least I've returned to sanity. Right now I'm taking a few days off - Friday, today, Tuesday, Wednesday. I didn't really plan on taking off Easter, and out here in Seattle, there isn't a complete shutdown for Easter holiday.

I've reading a lot of spending diaries. Apologies that I'm not participating. I do feel quiet keenly that as soon as I'm away from work, I spend much more. When I'm working, my daily costs are basically one bought coffee ($2), and whatever daily groceries ($10 - $20) I go for. Starting on Friday, my spending jumped to a good $50/day with bought breakfast, bought entertainment, and bought lunch. Out and about, I do find more loose change ... but that doesn't keep up with the spending. .

This last Friday, I used a friends and family coupon and saw the Gauguin exhibit. Still $18; however it was cheaper than buying the plane ticket to Paris. Plenty of Gauguins - Breton ones, Paris ones, Martinique ones, 1st trip to Tahiti ones, 2nd trip to Tahiti ones - but the real stars of the show were the war clubs, craft boxes, sculpture and tattoo work of Tahiti and New Zealand which was his source. The other lookers were pretty mellow - it was senior Friday. Some looked like they could have seen Gauguin himself.

Weather has finally improved, so I got caught up on grouting three pieces. I showed lawyer friend a picture of the piece I made for him for his housewarming. I was relieved that he was thrilled with it.

I'm back up into the 167-168 range. I'm in the process of going through my food diary and seeing what I can change in my diet, looking for triggers, just looking for patterns. I did this this morning with a coffee sitting on a bench overlooking the Ship Canal. Very relaxing.

Oh yes, no one had Mike Wallace this year. I had Mike Wallace last year. As I've said repeatedly, I'm good at picking people, its the year I'm crappy at.

Despite it being April Fools, all of this happened to me:

1. Found a dollar bill in a puddle today, along with a fair amount of additional change. Today's total found money was $1.56, but....

It put my total found after 992 days of tracking and looking at $200.81. Thank you Seattle for being so ... fey about yer money.

2. Bought broccoli for $0.99/lb.

3. Declared my soap nut experiment a success, so I hunted for a dependable bulk supply. Found it at Zenith Supplies for $12/lb. Bought about $10 worth, along with 3 muslin bags. You put about 8 soap nuts into a muslin bag, close the bag, throw the bag in the washer with your clothes. The soap nuts are light, so a bit under a pound of soap nuts is hundreds of soap nut shells, years' worth of laundry.

These things were true. But my favorite April Fools Joke for 2012 was

this.

Didja buy a Mega Millions ticket?

I did. Just one. First lottery ticket I've bought in 30 years. I still debated about it because I was on record for saying, "its a tax on people who don't get probability".

What tipped me to buying it though was, well, I managed to find over $1 in change during the last four days so I could make the case that I bought the ticket with other people's money.

So what would I do with over a quarter billion? Probably what someone in Illinois did: put it in an LLC and keep my name out of the papers.

But what I did buy with the mini-lottery win (aka paycheck) was: rent, groceries, electric bill, and a pledge to my public radio station

Work is easing up a little. My boss, the director of the department, is on leave and the biggest project she had me on was developing the department budget. Got it done today which means I can finally, finally go back to digging myself out of the swamp of work.

I had a number of interesting experiences this week. Wednesday I went to the pre-construction open house to the Northgate light rail station. Our quick way to get home from I5 is going to be used as a staging area. No surprise and sacrifices have to be made. The big controversy is more parking versus a pedestrian bridge coming from the community college. Its building up to be a choice between one or the other - depends on whether you think the cars are coming from the north or to the west.

I left soon after a 70 yr old woman complained that the station will block her view of the Olympics. A quick calculation is telling that by the time the station is built, the view is going to be the least of her concerns. To be fair, this project is not made for her particularly. Its not even made for me, who is pushing 50 next month. 9 years from now I'm thinking of retirement, not commuting after all.

The next wacky thing this week is finding out that Saturday a

Hollywood production is being filmed nearby AND that Gary Busey is in it. Somebody on our crew has him on their list. Never been able to "throw" the results before!

And today, I took a little stroll near Occidental Park (Pioneer Square) and walked past three news crews. I asked a local about and he told me that the lawyer defending the US serviceman charged with the killings in Afghanistan... well, his office is nearby. So they are waiting.

Just in case you were curious about it. It turned out smashing! The party was fun, but there was not so much planning - more like what were people's hobbies, personality, did people have side plans? A fair number of people also wanted to travel across the wide, wide river bed and visit Urugray.

We are still planning the Argentina trip in September with 3 other couples - including lawyer friend and his partner. The eight of us are having a potluck at lawyer friend's house on Friday to talk and plan.

The most Argentinian dish that I know of is matambre - stuffed rolled flank steak. Tonight I butterflied the flank steak, pounded it thin, and am marinating it with red wine vinegar and garlic. I've also cooked a couple of sausages (hard boiled egg is classic, but the host is allergic, so sausage will sub for egg), and steamed long strips of carrot.

Tomorrow I layer sausage, carrot, red onion, minced garlic, and spinach onto the flank steak, tightly jelly roll it, tie up the roll with string and roast it for an hour. Thinking of making some chimichurri sauce while it roasts.

Friday I bring it to work and thence to the party.

Friday will be nice, these last few weeks have been h-e-double toothpicks. Must be going 'round.

I broke down and bought one (1) box on Wednesday. Now I'll have to ignore for the rest of the season. My traditional rules of buying cookies were this:

Last day of the sale.
Buy on the fly - no preorders.
Buy whatever is my favorite from the limited choice.
Parent should be nearby and only as an observer and doing security.
Girl(s) have to be the saleswomen and do the entire thing...
Discuss their product
Do the math
Take the money
Make the change
Thank the customer

I passed by a stand at the grocery store and with the exception of it not being the last day, every thing else was met. I bought a box of a new flavor, Thank You Berry Munch, that had dried cranberries in it. The salesgirl assured me that those cookies went well with coffee as she was asking another girl to help another customer and a third girl to help me with change. CEO material there!

You be the judge...

Friday: Unless you bring $100K to us,

you aren't worth it. This from Chase Bank.

Saturday: From my mailbox, a little blue envelope that apparently states that I would get $125 if I signed up for Chase checking.

Hmm. Well which is it? Yeah, I can bring a 100K for you, but at $125 and no interest, you aren't worth it.

You might remember that I jumped ship from Chase to the credit union because the credit union had a banking node and 2 ATMs in my neighborhood grocery store. Banking node and 1 ATM left in early December for Northgate. As I got money at the ATM left over, I read the sticker. The ATM left over will go away on the 22nd.

Bummer. I can still get money at the point of sale at the grocery store, and I can deposit money at the branch downtown. Or I can displace - I can count the money in the tip box, and transfer that to savings, and spend the original.

Still - the ever shifting sands that is banking and credit union-ing is getting to me. You have branches that go away, and you have mergers between a bank you like (ING) and a bank you don't (Cap One), so suddenly you have savings in a place you hate.

No wonder people spend - the more you have saved, the more the money moves beyond your control irk you.

The stock certificate came tonight.

I was reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and I realized that the Packers were having their stock sale. I've been tempted a couple of rounds before, very tempted in 2001 ... now I finally pulled the trigger.

I now have a share in the Green Bay Packers. I own probably a billionth of the team ... maybe a blade of grass in Lambeau. It was basically a way of dressing up a 200$ gift - only bragging rights, and an excuse to go to the shareholder meeting in Green Bay in July.

Trainer weighed me this afternoon. 163 is a very exciting milestone. I'm 5-8, and 163 crosses over (under?) from overweight to normal weight. Don't kid yourself - I still have a little bit of gut even at 163 - but it is an exciting milestone nonetheless. Much, much better than 209, which is what I started at.

It, um, means something different out here in Seattle. Last Super Bowl Sunday (5th) we went over to the Duvall friends to watch. In late December, the 520 bridge turned into a toll bridge, so getting there we took an alternate route. That night though we thought, eh, screw it, let's play, see what happens and report out.

So we took the toll bridge. The traffic on it was beautiful, FYI. Apparently cameras are set up to take a shot at your license and mail you a bill if you don't have a Good To Go account.

Which is what we got this Friday (24th). Its no biggie - 3.15$, and its good to know that it takes a hair under 3 weeks to get the bill.

We tend to go there few times a year, definitely not enough to get a monthly weekly pass, but I'm looking into starting an account and putting a few bucks in it for the I'm-tired-it's-night option.

I've been sick since Friday, when I first felt that tickle in the throat. I canceled gym on friday, and, the same as the time before, the gym failed to get the message to the trainer. Sigh. Note to self: forget the main phone line for the gym, use the trainer instead.

I got everything that I wanted done that day, though, including pulling three large data sets due to be formatted and booked onto a little flash drive.

Saturday I was a little worse, but not that bad. Sunday a little worse yet. It was Monday that I really bottomed out - didn't do anything except sleep. Today I was a little better but probably pretty contagious and still not even 70%.

So today was actually perfect. I worked out my three data sets from bed, with a little moral support from kitty. No distractions, got the formatting done, and will book them when I come back.

I felt energized enough to walk to a pho place in the neighborhood for a bowl of pho ... my favorite thing for a cold or flu.

Again, got paid a couple of days ago.

Turns that in addition to the 403B, we had (in the process of 'had-ing') a 403A. HR is merging the two so we are in the process of deciding what to do with our money in our 'As'. Choices are:

Roll it into the B
Roll it into another deferred-tax bucket
Cash out.

Since I don't like paying extra in taxes and penalties, cashing out is not an option. I picked rolling it into B.

Put 58$ of several months of tip box squeezings into savings. I was going to do it physically, but the ATM line at the grocery store didn't make it worth it. So I pocketed the money and moved $58 into savings. No line there.

Congrats, Paulette. You pulled ahead in dead pool today.

In honor of retire@50 and monkeymama:

Had a very productive, moderately frugal day today:

10:30 - 12:30. did the Sunday routine of going to the coffeehouse and got coffee, a slice of quiche and read the Sunday NYT. Yes, I pay for coffee. Sundays it happens to be free, but if there is a jar about, I slip a dollar in. I've made my peace with paying for coffee - I get drip, I enjoy the ritual of ordering and being social with the staff. NYT paper subscription on the weekend happens to be expensive and duplicates the Kindle, but I like the feel of paper, I see all the pictures and the NYT itself is the one paper that won't turn your mind into cream cheese.

12:45 - 1:30. 2 mile walk, listened to the podcast of Marketplace Money, hunted for change (found pennies and a 10 cent euro coin). Noted on the walk that a Tile company was having a 20 yr anniversary sale. 50% off grout. Will have to check that out.

1:30 - 1:45. Hit the bus stop. (I go carless). I used OneBusAway to figure out when the bus will come - it really helps to take away the frustration out of using transit. Found out I had about 15 minutes, so I went to the produce stand. Bought 69 cent avocadoes for lunches next week, and $1 bagged salad. I was tempted by the $2/pt blueberries but figured they'd get smashed by the time I got home.

2:15. Made it to Bedrock Industries to pick up 10$ worth of vitreous glass for mosaics. Noted that I can get 4 x 4 in squares of marble for 50 cents!

2:45 Walked to Peets and Whole Foods because I was feeling a little hungry. Peets had a line, didn't see what I really wanted at Whole Foods, so I skipped the temptation. Noted that the blueberries were at 3.99$ at Whole Paycheck.

3:15 Caught the bus back and walked another 1.5 mile home. Got my exercise today and quiet time today.

4:30 - 7:30 Pulled my green folder out, took up Vanguard's offer on cheap(er) TurboTax. Calculated and filed my 2011 taxes. I pay $207, which is pretty usual for me. Since my 403b is going great guns, that represents my tax deferred money pool; I put 5K in a Roth - its worth more to me to bulk up the tax-free pool of money than it is to get the refund if I put it in a traditional IRA. My tax rate in total this year is 9.7%; I'm good with the $207.

In other words, I got a lot done, learned bits of information to further my hobby, got exercise, chilled out. I spent a little bit but I'm good with what I spent - it will all get used.

Hope you all enjoyed it! I was in the grocery store Sunday morning, waiting in line amongst people all getting the same thing - beer, chips, dip, more beer, wings, salsa - when it hit me what I was experiencing:

Guy Thanksgiving.

Think about it. Regular Thanksgiving is some all you can eat Traditional Food with some football; the Super Bowl is Traditional Football with some all you can eat food.

The game seemed meh to me. Word to the wise: don't second guess a touchdown. Score them and be done with it. The ads were even more meh. Only the fat dog getting fit and Clint Eastwood trying to clear his throat using a Chrysler script seemed to rise above.

Visited with the Duvall friends and carted back many of the items they brought over, then, at the end, carted back home many of the things I left over there. One extra thing: they hung my mosaic of their rooster. Looks great! Yay!

Grocery 1.

Went over to the dying Greenwood Market tonight - it's advertising their last 2 days of business. There was a lot of empty space, but they had set up an open house for cupcake, cider and coffee. One could write in a memory book. I wrote that I always appreciated buying a brat from them during the Seafair Parade.

Anyway, as I ate my cupcake and drank my coffee I saw one of the staff come up with cleaner and a rag wiping up a spill. "Two days left and you are still cleaning?" I asked.

"Of course", he said.

Grocery 2.

Went over to the Safeway to pick up a few groceries. Found a few. Didn't find any change on the floor, but I did note 5 or so tiny dried spills...

You come home at the end of the day, throw your keys in the bowl and set your groceries down and you remember:

Hey, I got paid!

Such was me yesterday. Work is easing up a little but there is another big rut roh. Data is off, and while it is not my fault booking what we got and officially how was I to know ... well, I feel responsible. Especially when the COO is asking. Especially as I got a Kindle gift card as a thank you about it Monday.

And I spent it already. On a couple of e-books on Argentina and Buenos Aires, and another paper book on mosaicking.

Tonight Coinstar was my friend. I passed by a couple of people using it, bought something, then passed by it (unoccupied), and picked up the three coins the couple left. One was a 1963 silver dime. Its the fifth silver dime I've found (and I keep those). Last time I checked, the silver in a silver dime goes for $2.

Talked to a co worker who was a font of mis-information about investing. I don't think I'm going to bother. He did tell me about the old gomers who gave him the advice. Wonder what kind of retirement those gomers have.

Can't wait for Sunday, to kick back with the Duvall friends, some homemade pizza and a bottle of Mikes. Too bad I don't have a dog in the fight - critiquing the ads will have to do.

Again, insanely busy, which is normal ... my January is like all my other Januarys in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 blah blah blah.

Lately though I've been excited (yay) and then there's one little hitch so I have to "rut roh" and eat a crow drumstick. This menopause thing is getting to me; I used to have a mind like a steel trap. Now it seems to work like a Venus fly trap.

A couple days ago I found a dollar bill, yesterday a wheat penny.

Tax paperwork is trickling in - I have to double check, but I seem to only be missing a couple of Div 1099s. Get those, and I can see what the lay of the land is.

But another yay this evening. DH and I have plans to go to Argentina in September. At least that is the plan. Several other couples are involved - the plan is to rent a house in Buenos Aires and use it as a launch pad. Fingers crossed that it works out.

Hard to believe that grey is such a sweet, sweet color around here. We still have a little bit of snow and plenty of icy water on the lawn and in the driveway, but everywhere else, it was muddy snow, wet roads and downtown, dry sidewalks.

Errand day today: delivered the now-clean gym clothes to the office, did a 3.5 mile walk (first long-ish one since last Sunday), bought bras at Fred Meyer which is now also doing a clearance sale preparing for them to close for renovations, picked up some trash around the house. (We had our recycling bin blow over in the windstorm last night). Cancelled the grout fest scheduled for today - maybe next week when it might be a true fest because I'll have two pieces to grout rather than just one.

Found 17 cents "around" a penny or a nickel at a time.

Oh, yes, several people had Etta James; a couple of people have Joe Paterno. This year, with more players and the players themselves seem to have done better research ... the game is already interesting right off the bat.

Luckily, the office was not as nutty as they have been previously - the office has been closed and I'm on my second snow day. DH's office (IRS) tried opening but they closed at noon.

Walking is okay - still have my Yaktrax and they are the best 20$ I ever spent. The neighborhood businesses tend to be open when their employees are living nearby. I thanked the Safeway for being open. Saw two little girls looking under the Coinstar machine - one pulled out a quarter. Heh heh - good to see the habit being passed on.

Other than that, the usual soul searching - are we weenies in the snow, why are we weenies in the snow, could this be handled better, could this have been predicted better? Once upon a time I would have been among them. Now - yep I'm a weenie. I hated snow and ice when I lived in the midwest, and came to Seattle because I wouldn't get much of it. While I would prefer that Seattle wouldn't shut down in the snow, it does, and you can either b!tch about it or deal with it.

In other words,

"go on board, dammit!"

So in that spirit - this is what I'm doing this afternoon...

Yeah, this time I'm one of those Seattle snow weenies. I left work early, caught the bus, got home before the sun set. In my salad days I would have been out there snickering, but these days ... I'm not going to be the problem.

If I wake up to a couple of inches and more snow, doesn't matter whether the office is open or not, I'm staying home. I've got plenty of PTO and I can't imagine that any "fire" at work couldn't wait a day or two.

Of course, nobody had better die tomorrow. Wikipedia is going dark that day due to a protest on SOPA. Also get any lolcat craving out of the way today, they will be dark also.

I thought about putting Paula Deen on my list. Even tasting that cooking will get you in trouble (you have to taste quite a bit and the often-ness of it probably keeps you craving that stuff), and keeping it secret for 3 years just says denial to me.

Spent $14 getting enough food to last a couple of days,

It turns out that the twilight zone moment was a practical joke pushed too far by a Customer Service rep. I mentioned it to the Customer Service rep's supervisor to chat with him a bit. The way to have played it was, "yes it was a joke, isn't it funny?" and left it at that. Comedy is a fine line ... and that line is very fluid. When things ease up a bit, he could have played it further but as it is ... show a little restraint.

(Yes, restraint is mighty rich when you are MCing a death bet, but there it is.)

Got home and opened an offer from Chase. If you start a checking account (no doubt with direct deposit), Chase will give you a 200$ gift card. Yippee! Yeah, no.

Collected two more forms for my taxes. W4 and a 1099 from ING.

We are all waiting for snow apparently this weekend. French toast hankerings have begun.

So far, healthy as a horse, so I'm working like a horse at work. You might remember that book pledges/work data at a non-profit that rhymes with "you don't say". I had a MOMENT tho at the end of the day.

It started off from the generic Customer Service inbox email asking both a co worker and I we should book a 2.8M gift, read below. 2.8M, huh? Okay ...

Then you read the email. We've been trying to contact you, yadda yadda yadda, and we will give 2.8M if you give us $145. And full of typos.

Is this a joke? I wrote.

Received an email back: I called them (yikes, you can't be serious! I counted the digits and it was an INTERNATIONAL number), the money was to resolve an issue that we had in the past, and I talked with accounting and they were wondering how to book it.

Oh boy ...

Co worker, who was with me on this, told the emailer to take it to the COO.

Emailer: fine, but I'm planning how to spend my raise.

Of course we got word from the Customer Service supervisor that it was a scam, but man, I don't know where to begin. I'm fairly certain, although not 100% sure, that it is a practical joke. (the other option is complete idiocy) Its just that this is NOT the time of year to toy with us. Its just not appreciated!

Friday night was the deadline to the dead pool. I now have 13 players - which is so fantastically symbolic that I'm closing it to new players. Just got CB's payment, and with her, Mjrube, Mjrube's friend, and Paulette participating, its tempting to consider this the $20 challenge by other means. Good luck to all.

Tax time this year - I've pulled out my green (again fantastically symbolic) folder and am out "collecting". Its different this year - most places really, really want you to sign up for e-delivery to keep you paperless, or to impoverish the USPS even more. I haven't made any exotic moves, the drip re-investments are about 1K, and I haven't made much interest, I can't imagine that I'm going to pay a ton of tax. Only thing is that one of my drip companies got bought out by another drip company (which I like even more), so not only is it one more 1099, I can't write off the stock loss.

Today I did a bit of walking, but I checked out grout colors at Home Depot and Lowe's ... still might go with the gray that I have, and I slipped into Ross and picked up a Cal King bed sheet set. We have a couple of sets that we rotate, but it would be nice to refresh them a bit. Also bought a bit of food from the Greenwood Market, another grocery store that's going away. I'm still bummed. With them going away, the Fred Meyer down until October, and one of our main arterials being ripped up, 2012 is ... 2012.

Read this interesting

article about weight loss last Sunday. Since weight loss and saving money are aligned a bit, hear me out because this blog post has a lot to do about money.

The article was particularly interesting to me because I appear to be one of those rare persons who has managed to keep the weight I've lost, um lost. Although I can't seem to lose lots of weight in one smooth movement, I seem to lose the 10lbs, then plateau, then wait for some change to lose 10lbs, ...rinse and repeat several times. I'm right now at 166.6 (40 lbs down since November 2005) and have managed to survive this year's holiday carb-fest.

Anyway, much of the article described what it takes for others (and me, frankly) to sustain the weight loss. Basically near constant monitoring, food and exercise diary, treating yourself as a data point. In a sense, the weight loss maintenance takes on its own place in the calendar. Its really become a hobby, something that requires energy, attention, thought, discussion.

Thinking about that, I had my first epiphany: most people think of eating as a hobby, and exercise as a chore . Most of us vary our eating, can tell you where good restaurants are, and hate cooking themselves because that's a chore. The weightloss sustainers inverted this - they essentially try to make eating as much a chore as possible. They cook at home, they try eat as consistently as possible and measure it. On the other hand, they try to exercise as much as possible - walk, garden, gym, bike and try to mix it up. Vary it, talk about it, measure it and journal it. They try to turn it into a hobby.

My second epiphany came when I thought about saving and spending because they parallel weight loss. Most Americans spend as a hobby, save as a chore. I mean when we blog about others buying that 50K countertop, well what are they doing? Spending as a hobby. They save (or try to) as a chore. Pay yourself first - try to make it automatic ... which works mechanically, but boy not very much fun.

The thing that gets me about the bloggers at saving advice is that we all try to think of saving as a hobby - play games, try different things, journal and discuss what we do or what we've discovered. We also try, at least, to put some aspects of chore into spending. Spend on needs first, then wants .... and not just any wants, needed wants if that makes any sense.

And then investing. You are turning the spending hobby on its head by saving, but buying money.

Now the chore piece ... I don't really want to discount it, make it sound awful because its really not. Chores are important they are necessary and they can even be semi-fun. Just not as fun as a hobby.

As mentioned by Paulette, she is playing with us, along with mjrube, and CB. I have almost as many bloggers playing as F2F contacts. Since not everybody likes to read this sort of stuff - it requires that you are secure in your karma - I've put my list in the comments that you can read or ignore.

Also bought stamps so that I can mail mjrube her winnings for 2011.

Let me give you a tour of my tiny portfolio:

Monkey mama linked to my first project, done in class. I loved it, but I don't think of it as sellable and the grout is now starting to crack on it. I learned two lessons - 1. don't get fancy with the edge (fancy edges have to be babied), and 2. grout has to "cure" slower than 3-4 days ... I wrap my pieces with a bathtowel I hate, spritz the towel to dampen it and wrap that in a plastic kitchen garbage bag and leave it alone for a full 7 days.

This is the finished garden tray. I found a wire tray at the thrift store and fit the piece to the bottom. Wearing like iron!


This is the piece I gave to the Duvall friends. Its a homage to their

1-winged rooster, State & Main. 1 wing but he produces "swimmers" (their comment, not mine). His first rooster son, First & State, got sold to neighbors.


I asked a coffeeshop (Green Bean) to hold their chipped and broken mugs, plates, and other ceramic stuff. I used a fair amount of black coffee mug for the rooster tail above. I made this piece for them. Word has it that they will be hanging it soon. I'll let you all know if that comes to pass!


I still have to grout this for lawyer friend and partner. They love poker and throwing dinner parties. What should happen (fingers crossed) is that the clear glass should protect the card face underneath from the grout. I learned also that a much better source for interesting ceramics is not the thrift store, but a high end ceramics shop because the high end shop can only sell the chipped and cracked pieces to me for a quarter or fifty cents. (a Vernon plate provided the curtain-y middle top).

I was doing very well as of June 2011, even broke above $600K even throughout much of July. Then August happened and I dropped quite a bit. I say that to get perspective - that I'm only 5K down is just fine. This year has been so flat and meh. The increase between December 2010 and December 2011 is literally based on the contributions I put in. (5K in the Roth, 16.5K in the 403B)

$235,596 IRA/403B
$182,365 Vanguard taxable
$35,536 stock
$13,565 I-bonds
$25,000 CDs
$98,563 ING
$1,538 immediate cash
$592,163 total

December 2011 ($592,163 total, $356,567 in taxable accounts)
June 2011 ($596,791 total, $376,359)
December 2010 ($575,346 total, $356,542)
June 2010 ($553,023 total, $369,589)
December 2009 ($551,300 total, $385,771)
June 2009 ($512,054 total, $379,475)
Dec 2008 ($498,148 total, $386,021)
June 2008 ($524,261 total, $387,481)
Dec 2007 ($328,688 total, $192,747)
June 2007 ($176,422 total, $48,205)
Dec 2006 ($132,062 total, $40,329)
June 2006 ($120,261 total, $65,148)
Dec 2005 ($67,778 total, $23,740)
June 2005 ($46,115 total, $11,293)
Dec 2004 ($38,338 total, $7,558)
June 2004 ($29,050 total, $4,533)

I say that because here in Seattle (and in Hollywood) we still have 2 hrs left of 2011. I take my death bet MCing seriously. If someone slides off this mortal coil from Pacific Standard Time zone, I am ready.

Right now I have 7 players for 2012, and that's not even counting several from work, whom I've given next week. My workmates all know the rules and that I'm going to check their picks. It's possible that we can have up to 12-13 players, which makes the winnings very nice.

Best of everything in 2012 to all SA bloggers! The only resolution that I believe in making is to resolve that Jan 1 is just another date. If you need to make a change, no time like the present. Any of the other 364 days will do.

For 2012, I plan to do more mosaics and sell some this year. I've created three with a fourth on the way and given them as gifts to the delight of the recipients. Time to see if the world needs another mosaic artist.