Friday, October 19, 2012

Bright spots in Dark Days

The days are getting shorter and darker. Only a few of my solar lights get enough energy to glow. I ran in the dark drizzle early this morning though finally, at noon, the sun is starting to appear. While we were gone, the power went off in our bedroom and bathroom. No it isn't the circuit breaker.  The power went on and off a few times but now, it is off. We ran an extension cord from the still working part of our house just so we could see.

The sad situation still exists and worries me.

All is not gloom.

Our 401K. Back when we were let go, we interviewed a few potential financial advisors who looked at our portfolio and said we were suffering from 'all of our eggs in the same basket'syndrome and advised us to unload our former company's stock ASAP. Maybe this was good advice but we didn't think so and dismissed anyone who said this more than once. We decided to hire one guy but he disappeared. Steve hired someone to look at stuff that wasn't in the 401K and we did OK. Meanwhile, our stock, really low, paid great dividends that were used to buy many shares. Now these shares have gone up considerably though not to the point that my many options would be worth anything. But we have gradually begun to off-load these shares into something 'safe' so maybe we will be able to afford our retirement. We are very glad we didn't listen to the experts. Still it hasn't risen to the point where I said I'd buy a house for Shanna if it went there.

Happy Hour and the Tiger's sweep. The Tigers versus the Yankees game was on at the bar. Much cheering from the fellow patrons who obviously weren't Yankee fans.  Unfortunately due to the strong winds, the bar had some power interruptions during some key plays. But they were very short.Back at home, I didn't even say anything to my resident Yankee fan. He has lived here much longer than in NYC yet he refuses to embrace anything local. He will always be a New Yorker and a Yankee fan.

My nails: Pretty things now though I didn't appreciate the new nail worker who  I think was dissing me in Vietnamese. I could see why Elaine wanted a translator to see what the nail people said about her in Korean on a Seinfeld episode. When I worked, my lab work would not be conducive to manicured nails nor did I get them done while I was in Chemoland. As a child I was told that my hands were my best feature, which was fairly disheartening at the time especially since the person who told me this struggled just to say this one kind thing about my appearance. But might as well make the best of my alleged best feature.

Creme d'Erable. My friend still had this from our Montreal visit more than 2 years ago. We carried these bottles for hours on our backs. Mine was gone within a week but she saved hers to serve the other night. Still wonderful. Steve tried to buy me a replacement maple liquor from an Ontario liquor store. It was a nice gesture but it wasn't nearly as tasty as the Quebec version. And the Mom's group that it was served at was very fun.

1 comment:

Holly said...

i am totally in the dark about how much i should have saved before retiring...scary stuff!

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