Every day I have clients booked.  Every day they bail.  I've gotten very zen about it.  Too zen, really, I need a bit more dominatrix.  I think I've only completed one client this week.  Yep.  One.  Leaving 19 to do next week.

Instead, I spent the day going through my email, removing some 3,000 from my in-box.  I'm down to a mere 1901 in my in-box ( Read more... )

I've been tracking spending in Quicken for 23 years.  In those 23 years I've spent precisely $4642.03 at Walmart, mostly on consumer-crap birthday or Christmas gifts purchased by B. (he works near one) and/or camping supplies purchased by us on while we were on vacation.  There's no reason for me to go there: I generally avoid buying shoddy ( Read more... )

Confucius said, "Study the past if you would divine the future".  With that in mind, I've always been a fan of history.  I recall reading Greek comedies in high school and realizing that they were the same plot as Shakespearian comedies as 70's sitcoms.  People are people are people.  Study what people did in the past under various pressures and ( Read more... )

In May of 2008 I bought about 75 pounds of bulk rolled oats and spent $.89/pound on the bulk pre-order from my local food co-op. I just got another 50 pound bag today (we go through about 50 pounds a year) and for some reason the cost is down to 53 cents a pound on bulk delivery, although the price on the shelf is up to about $1.50/pound ( Read more... )

I love it when old-fashioned phrases click into my brain and I understand what they meant. "A stitch in time saves nine" meant something about getting on top of problems early, until I actually went to mend a hem and realized it would have been much faster if I'd done it when it first just needed a single tacking down. A ha!

( Comparing apples... )

This is a localvore's dream holiday. The harvest is in and most of the traditional foods we eat at a Thanksgiving table are ones that are grown around here by people I know and/or were canned or frozen by me. My daughter loves to bake and she's home from college and is taking over the kitchen today to have her way with my bins of flour. (We're ( Read more... )

Scenario 1: The U.S. dollar gets devalued.

( If you follow the path you're on, you're likely to end up where you're headed. )

I'm going to spend this week-end doing a workshop with Chris Martenson.

There's probably already enough whiskey in the house, but I just stopped off at CVS to stock up on anti-depressants and dark chocolate.

I may need to gaze upon ( Read more... )

The leaves are at peak color right now.  I'm craving a bright sunny warm Indian Summer Day, but have to make do with a bizarre early fall snow storm with lazy fluffy (yet frequent) snowflakes swirling around among the red sugar maple leaves.  It was a beautiful walk to school today, with Small Boy sticking out his tongue and experimenting with ( Read more... )

I heard someone bitching about the American Health Care System the other day, complaining that their sister-in-law's sister had been sick with a fever for 11 days and no one did anything!

( This is the everyday common flu. )