Day One-hundred-and-forty-four: The Dependable Mail

Two days ago, Wednesday, I thought it was interesting but not significant when I recycled all my mail before I made it back into the house. Then yesterday, Thursday, I didn't get any at all. Now, I must admit that I don't really wish for much of the mail I do get, but ever since I listened to The Secret, I have been expecting checks. Now the time that each day's mail is delivered can vary so I didn't think it was significant that it wasn't there when I check throughout the afternoon. When I checked at 10:40 PM, I finally had to concede that I wasn't getting any. (I don't want to ruin a good story but I actually go into the garage for other purposes and check while I'm out there. Finding all those separate reasons to go into the garage could be quite taxing if I didn't recycle so much.) I didn't check until 6:30 PM today. There was mail but no checks.

I mixed up a batch of Almost No Knead Bread last night. Before I could bake it, I had to clean the kitchen. I probably would have done the cleaning anyway but it did require getting on it early so I could have the bread for lunch, a late lunch. While I thought about eating it all, I restrained myself. Besides, after the Spicy Mole Oatmeal Chili and the Mango Black Bean Salad, I was so full I could only eat one slice. It made a great dessert with honey on it. Even though I have some more Earth Balance spread, I forbore to applying it.

I learned today that my brother-in-law was laid off today. There's a lot of this going around. Unlike me with my empty nest, he still has all of his children at home, with one heading off to college next year and the other soon to follow. With the crashing stock market and the burgeoning unemployment, my Life after Layoff is not as stress free as I would have liked, but I remember back to early 1994 when I had much the same situation. I was really stressed then.

I don't know whether or not it was this by way of this blog or not, but I have received emails from others who are out of work with families. I can't get my mind off of the old joke: "Recession is when you are out of a job. Depression is when I'm out of a job." The I's have it. Too many people are in a depression. My savings is down over 40% from its high, including the thousands I put into it over the years from its high to now. I should be able to continue my freedom through next year but without some recovery, I will need more income than I had hoped after that.

I don't know how long my trip back for my visiting, particularly now that I have some work to do on that end of it, but I had thought to make stops at casinos along the way and call it my "Den of Inequities" tour. I'm willing to share my winnings, particularly since I had some visitors who left grubstakes. It can't add that much time and may help me win as I will quit while I'm ahead more easily to get on the road and avoid long losing streaks to get back on the road.

I started printing my Christmas letter but stopped less than but almost half way through. I knew I couldn't just load the printer and have it print so after printing the first one, I tried printing five. The first page/side printed fine so I restocked them to print the second page/back side. Those didn't feed correctly, ruining three of my Christmasy bordered sheets. So I printed a bunch more of side one and printed the back side individually. Then I doubled the number I was printing for side one, except I put them in the wrong way and printed three with the first page on the back. After I corrected my error, while printing the rest of the first page batch, there was a misfeed. In short, including my draft sample, I've messed up eight of my 100 sheets and it is taking far longer than I thought it would. Only two aren't useable, as in illegible, so if I absolutely need to, my family will be getting less than perfect Christmas letters. Since I wrote it, it is pretty well guaranteed that all others will as well, but some of them will look better.

I just wish I could find her other address book.