1. Buy the cereal in a bag brand, then "cut" it - mix in 1 minute quick oats.
2.(How many times have I done this?) Color in scuffs on your shoes with a marker. (The night before if you don't want the smell to tell on you.)
3. When grocery shopping, keep an eye out for the pink "WIC" stickers. These foods are usually a good buy.
4. When grocery shopping, note the price per ounce of the item you are buying.
For instance, ice creams vary between 4 cents and 30 cents per ounce.
5. Five dollar jewelry is usually thirty dollar jewelry that has been linked wrong.
With a tiny pair of beading pliers, your personalized adjustment to your jewelry can make it look like sixty dollars.
6. Avoid buying gas from a station near a highway since they charge more.
7. Shoe polish your leather shoes for Christmas or Easter, oil the leather any other time you want to look neat. You won't smell like polish, and the leather will look smoother and more expensive.
8. Updating your wardrobe with accessories is cheaper than updating your wardrobe with clothes.
9. Utilities on an apartment is usually much cheaper than utilities on a house.
10. When you buy new clothing, check the care tag to see if it is machine washable.

And I was right! whoo hoo !!

There's this lamp I want to get rewired. And nobody cares. And that's how it should be. I wouldn't even care, if I didn't have a mental picture of how nice the living room will look once it's set up.

Work today went ok. I made more phone calls than usual. I finished updating four files, and I got a rebate from the office supply store. However, the rebate was made out in my name and not the company name! This seemed to concern my boss considerably.

My traditional thing to do with rebates when I worked in uptown was to spend them on copy paper. That way I was not really tempted. But it does raise questions. Does it look like the office supply stores of America ARE in fact trying to get kickbacks to the, let's say, *secretaries* who do the shopping?

Hmmmm.

My grandma called me. "I'm watching the fireflies," she said. "I wish I was there," I said. I'm eating a chocolate-covered graham cracker," she said and then paused, and laughed. "I guess life is pretty good," she summarized.

I set Twitter up to my phone tonight. I thought about what I would have to say. I don't want what might be termed googlemania, spot-smart data, or lurkers anonymous to know how my day goes.

Sometimes I used to wish someone would ride shotgun with me through a normal day at work, at lunch, and at the gym. These were things that were normative... how would it change it to have a witness, an audience? It wouldn't really change at all, but somehow I wanted someone to see: this is what happens to me, this is what I do, this is what I'm responsible for, this is what I enjoy, and this is what I'm passionate about.

But Twitter... is soo soo, like creepy. Like I don't want them to know when I'm where. Seriously.

I'd rather use it as a vehicle for "deep thoughts," platitudes, or stupid laughs. Nothing patentable. They'd steal it in a heartbeat. And PLEASE do not tell Everywhig when I'm at the freakin grocery store!! I mean what would be the good of that?

I still think it's creepy.

I was thinking... I need a hobby and I need money, so why not combine the two? Why should my hobby COST money, like mini golf or bargain shopping?

I want making money to be my new hobby. Or rather, since money is so stupidly dry it's unfunny... I want my new hobby to generate capital for me. To quote a good book on breeding betas: "For Fun and Profit"

At first I thought of labor intensive ways of making money, but there are two problems with that: 1. It quickly ceases to be fun. 2. You can't make it grow exponentially like you want.

Then I thought of fleecing people to make money. But that didn't sit well with my conscience.

So finally, I have a new hobby, and the first leg of this journey is finding out what it is that I have that is marketable... and doesn't involve being neked or lewd...

The first thing I have to do is say "no" to my favorite hobbies that COST money. I will still do them, but I will cut them back to reduce them to about two or three hours per week each.

The next thing I will do is get a weekly planning calendar that I print out for free, and block out considerable time per week for my new hobby.

And after that... who knows? Will the fun be fun? Will the profit be phat? I'll tell you what. It will be one cartwheel better than spending seventy or eighty dollars monthly to watch four hours of television DAILY.

Get a Life People!!!
(My not-so-humble opinion.)

I say: I live in a society because I do not know how to build a car, but I drive a car. (This is my way of saying something complicated in one short sentence.)

However, I will most likely NEVER meet the people who built my car... and did not even MEET the previous owner, one who paid for after-market work such as cruise control to be added.

And he wore a ring with a gem on his left hand and motioned with his hand while he spoke on the phone, as he drove... so that the gem in his ring dinged the custom tint job on the window...

And I have never met him and would not know him if I did.