baselle's Financial Diary

Well it is the great Mayan reset day, the end of Bak'tun 13. Yippee. Decided to not bother with the diet today. . Nothing like being caught on a diet on the last day of the end of the world! And if the world goes on tomorrow, well, then I can get back on the wagon.

I haven't weighed myself and I think that I'm gaining, but I put on a blouse known to be 'tight' on me and voila, a bit of space. So perhaps the routine of nearly every night spending 1-2 hrs painting a wall or an hour setting up to paint said wall perhaps counts as exercise after all. Or if, as it was tonight, clearish skies with no rain .... the golden rule of the carless person: "buy something heavy and awkward that you don't want to be lugging when it rains". Such as tonight, when I laid in two more cases of canned cat food. Lugging that on the bus and walking it home counts as weight bearing exercise, probably about 20 minutes of kettlebell swinging.

I'm still settling in, but I'm going to try to cheap out in surprising ways. For instance, I'm going to hold out on buying household Internet and wireless as long as I can. Several coffeeshops and the library maintain wireless within a three block radius of my condo. Clearly I'm not going to be doing sensitive work in a public network, but it should be fine for blogging and I think I can do my banking at work. I'm finding value in that a non-wired home forces me to be in the present and really relax. Pet the cat. Actually watch and enjoy the DVD. Paint the wall. Carpet the floor.

Carpeting is done. I showed off my pictures to them and they were thrilled. The carpet tile people (Flor) called me an asked if I would like a couple of boxes of samples. Totally free, and they paid for shipping. I said yes - I can make many bath mats, kitchen mats, entryway mats, and I have several friends who would be interested in what I come up with. So an opportunity presented itself.

Tomorrow will be the start of another big project - moving my stuff out of the old place. The ex is back with his family, and he flew out. He told me that I could use the car and that he would gas it up. I have a lot of stuff, but what I think I will do is just intensively get a slice of stuff every day for the next few days. for instance, tomorrow will be clothes and mosaic hobby stuff. Tomorrow cookbooks and a cooler of beef, etc. Then when ex comes back we take it room by room.

Well, this is the first post in about 5 months. My entry title is a take off on Jack Paar's first words when he came back to his Tonight show after a big long kerfluffle.

Anyway, what happened was not a mere storm to my routine it was a fiscal hurricane (apologies to those still coming back from ss Sandy). It was all self induced. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about it.

First of all, no more DH. Actually, just to be clear, DH was more a DP (partner). We never got married, but we were together for over 20 years. I fudged the legal aspects of the relationship to provide myself a hair more anonymity. And now, it matters little except for the fact that no marriage, no divorce.

I had been dissatisfied in our relationship for some time, but something good usually happened that I could go on for a little longer. Last July though, I just looked around and saw that DH (okay, DP) was not going to change and I was damned, if I continued, that I was going to spend my next 30 years picking up after him. I blew...for me I blew, and then while I snapped back I snapped back into a different place ... a different realization.

We broke up, but we did go to Argentina together. I did give him the option to not go (he took out trip insurance), but told him that we all did want him to come. I can't say what he thought about the whole thing. I know that strangely enough, it took the heat off of me. If he did something cringe worthy, I didn't think of it as a reflection on our relationship because there now wasn't one.

Next day after I snapped, I went to my credit union in search of a home loan. Which, if you look at my net worth, was easy to get. I had 20% and could qualify pretty easy for a 3% 15 yr fixed. Next I thought hard about what I really really wanted. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a real yard? Yeah, I suppose, but really yard work only appealed to me once in awhile, while plants in the yard grew relentlessly. And if I waited for Seattle home prices to turn reasonable, well I'd still be spending 30 yrs waiting for that. Plus, if I truly wanted to do yard work for a couple of weeks, I could fly out, spend some time with sister at the farmette, help her with the garden and weeding, and since I co-own the farmette, well, it helps me also.

After a bit of searching, I found probably one of the last sweet condo deals in Seattle, out in Lake City/Cedar Park, out at the northeast edge of Seattle. And yet the bus commute was 20 minutes shorter than what I'm used to (buses here are express, and I'm on the last stop before downtown), and the neighborhood itself sports a +90 walkability score. So I now am a proud condo owner.

With it, well I'm still spending money right and left. However, I'm buying quality and getting exactly what I want. New carpet, but carpet tile instead of wall to wall shag; new paint, but high end paint which means I can get away with 1/2 coats, only buying 1 gallon and taking only 1/2 sessions to paint a room. V.I. (kitty) has moved in with me and seems to have settled in well. Of course that litter genie could have helped much.

I can't rightly say that I'm saving money yet, but I am saving my sanity, resetting my routine, making new friends (I'm now closer to Spondilucks, who invited me to her New Year's party).

More to come, but as it is, while life is different, it is nicer for me than before.

Its been 10 days since I last wrote. Not that much has happened:

Got evaluated at work, and did smashing. I did read though that our medical insurance is going up double digits so who knows if a smashing evaluation translates into a raise.

Did the Gumshoe but did not win. Paulette did the Gumshoe and she did not win. We made plans next year to do the Gumshoe together ... and not win.

Working on the mosaic business numbers. Am about 30% done. Don't know if I'll get them done before Argentina, but we will see. Went online to vistaprint and did up a $10 box of business cards.

Got the first notification of what our 403B fees are or will be, with a lunch meeting about it next week.

KO split on Monday. 246 shares. Yippee!

Been hotter than blazes lately up here in the northwest corner. In addition, I've been averaging 2-3 hot flashes/day.

But all in all, it feels like the calm before the storm. I don't think the storm will happen before the Argentina trip, but mostly after. And by a "storm" I mean a complete change in my routine. Things feel different, like the routine that I have I will not have too much longer.

I do have one change already - my current trainer left the gym and I have to decide whether the new spot is convenient enough that I can work it, namely get there by public transit within 15 minutes. If not, I think I will see if and how I can get by with just me. I say that, but the last time I said it I was 20 pounds heavier. Right now, altho I'm stalled in the mid 160's, I feel that really ... 150s is about the right weight and I'm pretty close. And without gym, I can get some real savings in for the "storm" to come.

Except 90 degree weather and a small ethical dilemma.

I was walking past the Coinstar machine and kept hearing the clink of a coin being loaded, rejected, re-loaded in, and the light cursing of "da&* dime" coming from a 20 something woman doing it over and over.

I asked her whether I could buy her coin off of her. "Sure!" she said, "these old coins are such a pain."

So I gave her a regular dime for the 1963 silver dime, and she was very happy with the trade. (In or near a Coinstar machine, I've gotten 3 silver dimes in the last 6 weeks. I now have 8 silver dimes.)

I feel a bit bad about it though. Looked up the silver dime net worth and the melt value is $2. If it happens again, I think I might give out a $1 and use it as a teaching moment.

On the magic, lucky

front, it turns out that in the U.S. silver dimes are the luckiest, a Mercury dime in a leap year is even luckier, and 9 silver dimes is the trifecta of coin luck. 1 more silver dime to go.

Last week I grouted the house numbers in gray grout, then I let the grout cure gently for 1 week. This morning I delivered it!

The couple thought that it turned out better than they could have imagined. Even though I offered to charge them $70 as a thank you for taking a chance on me, nope I got a $100 bill for it....


And an offer to mosaic their business address number ...
in any way I choose as long as the number conforms to City of Seattle business statutes.

And a hey, we want some of your business cards so that we can talk you up...

I don't usually talk about shopping, but I will today. Today was the first day of a "City" Target located smack dab in the middle of Seattle. Last year, I opened up a Target DRIP and became a Target shareholder, so while I did a little shopping (sliced turkey breast for $5/lb), I did mucho research.

The place was packed - plenty of business being done. An excellent addition to a once nasty block where you now can get lunch fixings, a sport bra, feminine products, hardware, furniture, an iPad, a wheeley suitcase, cards and wrapping paper... not that you couldn't get them before in downtown Seattle, you would have to run a 2 hr steeplechase through at least 7 stores. And you still wouldn't be able to find a hardware store.

So I'm stoked. I'm stoked that I can shop at it, stoked that it really opens up that once incredibly nasty block (2nd & Pike), and I'm stoked that I'm a shareholder to it.

Still no call from the court, so I have to assume that the jury I was an alternate for is still deliberating. I'll see if there is a way to search cases online. I was a little disappointed not being able to deliberate last week. I'm sure the jury that remains probably envies me.

Right now I'm relaxing at home, but I do have some goals for the day this week. Goal #1 is to catch up on my house cleaning - which I am doing 30 min or so at a time by using mini-projects. For instance, I scrubbed out the tub out yesterday afternoon. Ah, heaven! Goal #2, unfortunately is work related - performance evaluations. One more section for me to write on my own eval, and I scheduled the meeting for my direct report who went on family leave.

Goal #3 is to finish my commission. So far, everything is glued - I stick the mosaic onto a board using thinset, then grout. Grout cures for a week and voila. But so far, it looks good... Paulette, the finished piece will appear near you!


Sunday I hit the mother lode. I was at a yard sale, looking, and I talked with the owner who told me that she had a lot of stuff due to "projects". I mentioned my mosaics. Turns out that she used to do stained glass and asked me if I could use stained glass. Could I! . I bought what I think was about 10 lbs of glass for $5, it was a nice variety too. You can see the stained glass above and below the numbers.

Other things - I finished by change finding for the third year in a row (yes, oddball me I started in mid-july). $90.35. Thank you loose change losers. And yesterday, I found my 6th silver dime for my precious metal portfolio.

No interesting deaths that I know about - nobody had Andy Griffin, or Kitty Wells. 4 people in our group have Bashir al-Assad.

These days in Seattle you have to make that distinction.

After 1 month of no gym, and during jury duty lunch was free range with all the old haunts, I weighed and worked out with the trainer today. 167.8. By comparison, my lowest in the modern era is 164.2.

Phew!

So I was the jury alternate, the spare in case something happened to the other 12. The other 12 are now in deliberations, and I was released. I'm still not to talk about the case until it is over, but the court will call me when that happens.

As far as fiscal is concerned, I had a very merry time eating lunch at restaurants, not going to the gym, etc. Gym and the trainer cost bucks, so having to cancel means despite eating at restaurants I've been saving a bit than usual.

Excited that KO stock will split 2 to 1 in August. It doubles the shares, halves the price. It halves the dividend but since twice as many shares are generating the dividend one would get the same dividend ... however if you reinvest the dividend, at half the share price you buy twice as many shares, which then get reinvested. Right now I have about 123 shares, which will soon be 246 shares. The $60/quarter in dividend (not changed) will soon buy almost 2 shares/quarter.

My second day is Monday, and am part of a pool for a trial. If I'm picked for a jury, I'll be out for a little while. I'm a little quiet these days anyway!

I screwed up my courage, took my photos and talked with one of the art/decor/design boutiques in the neighborhood. It was a swing and a miss for what I wanted to sell (she is moving away from furniture and going toward purses, clothing, rugs, car upholestry). Anyway, she looked at sister's house numbers, wrote her house number on the back of a business card and wanted a mosaicked house number for her house in up rural Snohomish. Yeah! Not super duper big, but a confidence builder nonetheless. She asked how much it would cost, then caught herself because she herself has trouble pricing a job. I'm to keep track of my parts and labor.

I also connected with the mosaic store/workshop in Wallingford (Seattle neighborhood). The owner and staff were extremely friendly and enjoyed the pictures.

So big lesson: say hi, make connections even if its scary, and always bring pictures.

I heard about this - has anyone else? Apparently all 401K (and I assume, the close relation, 403B) plans have to first present their fee structure to plan participants. That will be a surprise to a lot of people. Me being a 403B wonk, I've gone to all the meetings, Q & As ... everything. Fees aren't a surprise to me. Our fees aren't horrible - one can invest in things under 1%.

The real fun begins in October when the fee transaction shows up taken out of your account. Woah nelly.

I progressed on sister's birthday present - mosaic house numbers for the place in Milwaukee and the farmette. I finished gluing the glass bits to a fiberglass mesh. This last weekend, I made thinset mortar and glued the mosaic mesh to the backing board. Here's what everything looks like.



The pieces will be outside, so everything has to be able to take rain, freeze thaw, and UV light. The backing board is styrofoam/fiberglass/coated concrete. The 'glue' is thinset mortar, the bits are glass and vitreous glass. All that has to be done is grout, and seal the grout. It should wear like iron.

(Oh yes, if you look carefully at the picture ... I have jury duty next week. Fun times.)

This week I formally asked for and got time to take the trip to Argentina. I knew I could get it - had plenty of PTO - but its a point of pride not to leave my boss hanging. I'm also taking a number of days off.

As a shareholder of KO, I got the shareholder proxy vote for the 2 for 1 stock split. Voted yes. So much less drama than voting for a person ... and yes I firmly believe that corporations are not people.

Sister's birthday gift is progressing nicely. I've glued the mosaic pieces together. I'll buy the thinset this weekend.

Contractor is tearing down the Greenwood Market building this week. I watched through the hurricane fence and saw the big gaping holes in the front of the building dug out by the dozers. Never had the lowest prices, but they were the most conscientious.

Am holding at 164.2, ready for the next drop down. My lowest weight in the modern era is 163.6.

This is a warning that its dark.

I work maybe two blocks from

here.

Every Sunday, I walk past here.

During my walk home, I have found much money on the blacktop of this carwash.

I've been known to have a coffee here.

This is a bit over 10 blocks north of where I live.

This is about 4 blocks south of where I live.

I'm saving for a Kevlar vest. What are the fashion forward colors this year?

The reckoning of 5-5-5.

1 liter of water most days: eh. About half of the days I did, including coffee, soup, tea, water, big salads. The other half, not really.

8 hr sleep most days: yes. I've been going to bed at about 10:45 and if I don't have much sugar that day the hot flash isn't bad enough for me to wake up.

Eat at least 5 colors every day: qualified yes. At least one meal is a salad with usually three colors, along with the daily avocado and either tan, pink, yellow/white for the protein that makes 5. There has been a day or two where its been white and tan. Today I had a slice of cake at a party...I can not count bright blue or pink as colors.

5 new exercises: nope. 2 at most.

5 times where I've exercised without the trainer: nope. Just 2. I have integrating a noon walk after eating at my desk.

All told, though, I'm back down to 164.4. I was up as "high" as 168.

Thursday night, I swapped the cords from our non-working DVD player to to the one I bought last week at the neighborhood yard sale. The player and the remote work!

Friday I joked that I had a frugal superpower. Along with being able to pick grocery store produce ... and I used that this weekend by picking out and buying the best 3 pound clamshell of strawberries. Our own strawberries in the strawberry pot are flowering and just setting fruit, as is one of our blueberry plants.

Got the idea for sister's birthday gift in August from a photo she sent me with my birthday gift... turns out that the farmette finally now has a mailbox. And that got me thinking; the classic first mosaic project for some is a house number plate. I know we have no house number plate at the farmette, so a mosaicked one will be her birthday gift.

So lets see...

Thursday I checked out a free talk by a fine art mosaic artist at a little rent space. I'll be filing that spot away for next winter - you can go and grout there. It turns out that Seattle is a small hotbed of mosaickers, so I'm going to tap into that.

Friday we put down the deposit for the space in Buenos Aires. At least according to the pictures, it looks sweet. Its a high-end four bedroom, four bath house with other amenities. The cost per person per day for our group is about $49. The only issue is that the place is fairly far away from the center of downtown, the history, and the sites, but it is close to the subway. Right now we have the airline tix, the living quarters...now to think about what we will do for 14 days. I say to give the guys an argentine grilling class.

Saturday was a double hit: the Greenwood Yard Sale and ticket to the Rat City Rollergirls. A co worker skated with them but is now retiring, so we all wanted to see her skate one last time. I had a fair amount of luck at the yard sales - DJ friend and wife are expecting, so I got 4 baby outfits for $10. I went a bit pricey because 3 of the outfits were new (one of them still had the tags), and all looked cute, clean, and were of different ages. I also got 2 sets of outdoor glasses for $2, a grout float for .20, a chisel for .10, and a DVD player for $2. Normally I wouldn't take the chance, but our DVD player is acting up, and the player I got was tidy and the remote was clean and tidy also...so it looked like a good gamble. If its not, well, 2 DVD players will be donated. Most of what saved me money was taking a picture of interesting things, rather than actually buying them.

Best thing I saw was a complete 3 inch telescope


Funniest thing I saw was this from the tool sale


Best blast from the past were these TV tubes in a bucket. It so reminded me of when the TV repairman made house calls, came in with his case full of these tubes all lined up.


The Rollergirls game was tremendous fun for $12. Not quite sure whether it was 'real', but then again, all sports are performance. There was a lot of humor if you looked at the skate names, skate numbers, referees.

We saved a bit by knowing the right bus line. Sneakily, we parked about 1.5 mi from our house, took the direct bus from there, then took the bus back to the car. Unfortunately for my diet, the arena food was expensive and not in keeping with 555 principles. . I got a chance to see what the sports setting of my camera did.

Coworker, conferring:


What the action generally looked like. The skatenames were a hoot...stuff like 357 Semi-Automatic, Ann R. Kissed (say it out loud). 30 in this picture was Shovey Chase. One of the referees was called Hanging Chad.


Glad that the referee was secure in his, um... referee-ness. This was the second game, so the skaters were different.


And Sunday, we had two hits in the death bet. The leader is still ahead , but the rest of the pack has now spread out.

I read

about repair cafes in the New York Times last week. A space, a group of people who are willing to take a whack at fixing things, other people that bring non-working stuff, along with coffee, tea, and cookies. Intriguing idea, I wonder if we can start something like this in our neighborhood. We have a lot of coffee shops that run trivia nights, craft nights, and other events.

Our biggest repair coup couldn't have happened in a repair cafe. DH replaced the belt on the washer about 5 years ago - still running well.

Today the trainer looked terrible - I was his last appointment, and I asked him to go home, I could construct a workout myself and follow it. Only 3 more additional visits to complete that 555.

Took a look at the 403B - its all knit together into one account. Now to figure out how I want to rebalance things.

Looked at my not-so little drip portfolio. Still hanging in there pretty well. I've shut off adding to two companies WEC and IP, but I'm adding to TGT. I am ashamed to say that I am following the JP Morgan trading issue with more than a little amusement.

555 doings: I've been off and on with the water. The beef soup helped last week, but this week I'm going to drink it. I'm taking two days off this week, so those days along with the weekend means that I'll get the 8 hours those days. Had a six-colored salad with my sliced turkey on Friday. Today, when I stowed my clean gym clothes in a storage locker I realized that I could put some of them on and work out for an hour, so FINALLY I met a new 555 requirement. (5 workouts at the gym without a trainer...got 1). During the little workout, I used the interval setting on the bike which I NEVER did before and used the stretching machine which I also NEVER used before (do or use 5 new exercises ... so far I have 3).

At work, the consolidation of our two 403B accounts is proceeding - I could only get into the one account that is remaining. Supposedly all money in on account got sold last Friday. Good time: stock prices are dropping so we are buying on the dip. End of this week we should see everything in its one account glory. Then its the decision on if and how to rebalance.

So far this year, the 403B has been growing at about 4%. It was 6% a couple of weeks ago.

In the 555 doings, Sunday I missed getting the 1 liter of water, but made it the other days; missed the 8 hrs of sleep last night (got about 7 though); ate salads - green purple orange red pink and white and at night have been eating the beef veg soup - green orange yellow and a bit of red. I've been a bit slack on trying to get extra days in. Tomorrow I'm going to try spin again.

May 3 - did manage to get the 1 liter of water by drinking the rest at bed time.

May 4 - got about 3/4 l of water, got 8 hrs sleep, ate avocado green, cucumber and lettuce green, red cabbage, orange carrot, along with a dab of yellow egg salad on a cracker. Trainer had me do a new exercise: the overhead kettlebell swing. I didn't concentrate on locking my wrists so I was dangerously tippy. After a couple of sets he had me switch to three-quarter high swings. He also had me do one-arm snatches with a 20lb dumbbell...(good practice for lifting turkeys out of grocery freezers), but those weren't new. Good day all around for the 555.

I'm about to use the last of the beef - beef shank and bones for beef soup. Plan on making a simple beef vegetable soup with at least five colors so I'll set myself up for a few days next week.

From my notes:

May 1 - drank about 3/4 l of water, so close; got 8 hrs of sleep but I woke in the middle with a night sweat; ate 4 colors - avocado green, lettuce green, carrot orange, white and red of radishes. I didn't count tan meat and that I finished up birthday cake whose frosting was a dubious color. Didn't do an extra workout and didn't learn any new exercises - that will be the case most days.

May 2 - drank 1 liter water, got 7 1/2 hrs of sleep, ate 3 colors - avocado green, bright yellow rutabaga, several red grape tomatoes

May 3 - only drank about 1/2 liter water, but the night is still semi-young. . Will try to get to bed in about an hour, ate 4 colors -avocado, broccoli, red pepper, olive green.

After a few days of thought, my 555s:

1. Drink 1 liter of water daily at least 5 days out of the week.
2. Get at least 8 hours of sleep at least 5 days out of the week (normally I get about 7 or so, pretty close).
3. 5 extra days in the gym this month - either a class or "on my own".
4. Eat at least 5 different colors most days.
5. Learn 5 new calisthenics this month ... I figure my trainer can help with that.

Got three colors so far today - time for the evening salad.

Five year plan will require more thought.

I left work early this afternoon. For me that's 4:30pm. There was a little whiff of tear gas in the air. I did manage to get out before the total transit snarl up. The protesters held the bus up for about 5 minutes before we got through. Not many people waiting until north of downtown.

TV cameras aplenty along Second Ave at noon.

DH left work - he's a seasonal temp for the IRS - early also. Matter of fact, that office shut down as soon after the first wave of window breaking happened. We were south and a bit west of the high end commercial corridor that got hit (again - those very windows were hit during WTO).

The new trick of the season was the sign used - party on the top (the sign itself), metal knob business end at the base of the stick. Protestor whacked windows with the business end of sign.

That's me. And somehow today made me feel a little sad. I wonder if its a mid-life crisis, more like the thought that very soon my life will change. Right now the routine works pretty well, with a job that I can still save money from, inheritance money which means that I fund my 403B to the maximum, no serious problems ... just...

I want to be a bit lazy. I like my work, but I hate the rush, the complexity, and the deadlines. Along with the paycheck, the medical insurance and the bus pass are very, very useful and would cost me plenty to replicate.

I love doing mosaics, but can I make at least a partial living from them? Can I sell them?

I'd prefer not to rent any more. I'd like a little garden, not to mention making things like decorative walls and backsplashes. Even if it would be possible (hah hah) to do that with the rental, I couldn't take it with me.

I'm certain that its my "this is it?" mental cry. I have to keep reminding myself that "it" is good and much better than many others.

So far, I have at these habits to shape into goals: more water, more sleep, spin class...what else?

Well, possibly. I know, I know, when a stock splits two to one, I get twice as many shares for half the price. Net worth is the same. KO pays a dividend, and after the split that is also halved to keep the dividend from doubling.

Still it makes me giddy - not necessarily right away, but afterward because a year or two later, when the dividend rises by a penny, it for all intents and purposes rises by two pennies. I have enough that when I reinvest I buy an additional share, after the split I buy two. (the dividend amount stays the same, but if the share price drops I buy twice as much)

I remember about 8-9 years ago when I would dutifully put in $50 into KO, and when it was in the low to mid 40s, I would buy at least one. Now its at around 75$, and I look forward after the split (75/2) to perhaps buy a little bit more.

Much better for the waistline if I buy a Coke share rather than a Coke.

Fun fact 1:
The two accounts comprising my 403B are FINALLY going merge sometime this week. Everything should be done by the 1st week of May. Rumor had it that it was delayed because HR had to find one ex-coworker, get him to decide and sign and if necessary, get him to create an IRA somewhere else.

Time to watch daily, and see where the money goes. Its been awhile since I decided, but I think I'm having it go as a very big contribution. After it goes, then I figure whether I should rebalance.

Fun fact 2:
Got a piece of mail regarding my old shares in M&I which got sold to Bank of Montreal (BMO). Apparently some shareholders are forming a class action suit, charging M&I CEO with collusion with BMO. I'll be watching that with interest. Methinks the results and $2 will get me a coffee.

Today I slogged through work, and gave some investment advice to screenwriter friend (he's newly vested in a company profit share plan). I gave him the slightly more than a nickel seminar which he claimed he only understood 10% of, so its hard to know whether or what he will use.

He did pick up researching the ticker symbols on Morningstar.com, even the retirement target funds. From the retirement target funds he was looking at I learned a fascinating thing. I thought I was freakin' aggressive with my asset allocation (65%/35%) in my 403B, but to T Rowe Price I was behaving like a new retiree. Tough. I'm making money, putting my $750/paycheck in and my dips are dips not canyons.

As Paulette mentioned, we are following the celeb on our list. Again, another who was on my list last year passed away. I say my list has healing powers! Robin Gibb will never die.

I got a 1935 buffalo nickel in my grocery change this evening!

Currently, steady as she goes...

Found out that I can use the new CU ATM in the grocery store without any charges either from them or from BECU. New CU seems a bit more focused on service inside the grocery store - they were open at 4 pm this Saturday.

Enjoying the several days of sun, for once this year, we finally got some! Sister is in the midst of planting for her CSA this year. She is a little north of the big tornado alley warning this weekend.

Holding tight at 167. I did do a quick analysis of my food diary, highlighting what I ate that was outside the paleo diet, counted the highlights, then compared scores when the two days my weight was high, and two days my weight was low. Right now, it appears that I can predict my weight based on a six day moving average of what I ate. The more closely I hewed to the paleo diet (lower scores) for those six days, the more likely I lost weight. The less closely (higher scores), the more likely I will gain. Time to really re-double my efforts.

Shut off optional contributions to two of my DRPs - IP and WEC, but have started them for Target (TGT). I've also put $300 into my Sysco (SYS) DRP. SYS has a $3 fee, so it makes more sense to put $300 in every so often than it does to put in $50/ month.

I found a useful used book on raising meat goats for the Duvall friends, copyright date for 2006, for $12. They have two milk goats and now several meat goats in addition to the boy milk goat, which equals a meat goat. I'm not sure if they have the book already; DH doesn't think it likely - their budget is stretched tight these days.

Another friend is saving ceramics and found materials for me. She has one of the best gardens in South Seattle, in my opinion. Might be fun and a change to do an outdoor project. Over my little break, I saw a couple of mosaic pieces in the window of one of the art gallery/consignment shops, screwed up my courage and talked to the owner and showed some of my photos of my pieces. She was warm and friendly, thought I was doing great. Also said that if I make her a mirror, similar to a piece I've done, she has a place to hang it.