Layout:
Home > Archive: August, 2008

Archive for August, 2008

Gas tracking, Etc

August 30th, 2008 at 05:45 am

I noticed yesterday that some of the gas stations had gone up by 5 - 10 cents except for one. So today I decided to fill up even though I still had a good amount to get me through the weekend. I didn't want to take the chance of the $3.34 price becoming the $3.45 price of another station (or worse!)

8/22/08 Odometer: 104,917
8/29/08 Odometer: 105,185

=268 miles (trip to mom and stepdads, trip to Mckinney (Museum), regular driving)

Purchased 7.764 gallons@ $3.34 =$26.00

Mileage = 268/7764 ~29 mpg

Hmm . . that number seems off somehow. It's strange how each time I fill up, my mileage seems to be going down by one mile.
----
Today was kind of frustrating at work. I was *very* busy. That is a good thing. But one of the frustrating things that happened was that I worked through my normal lunch hour to finish getting some documents certifed mailed. Then, when I took my lunch time, I had only finished eating a few minutes, when my OM saw me savoring the last few minutes of break time and was like - L, do you know DW has stuff he needs you to do? And that he said you'll have to stay here till it's done?

Arghh! Yes, I knew he had stuff he wanted me to do. I knew that it wouldn't be something that could be done quickly, and that he wanted it done before leaving for the weekend. I know she wasn't saying it to be mean or malicious or whatever, but at that point it just sat so totally wrong with me!

Then later on I was attempting to make copies of these HUGE documents. He wanted them in color. There is only the one color copier. I had managed to make one good copy, and had a second one set when the copier started whirring with a big print job. Usually I can handle that without outwardly showing any frustration. Today my frustration showed and was noticed by the person who'd sent the print job.

I know it can't be helped when there are a dozen people hooked up to the same copier/printer. Even so, it can be SO annoying when you're in the middle of a copy job to all of a sudden have a print job start up. It's nobody's fault, and can't really be helped. All the same, it still can be quite annoying.

CA News, Window Blinds, etc

August 29th, 2008 at 04:12 am

Some of you may recall that a few months ago I was considering a move to CA. After considering pros and cons, I developed a list of 5 signs/events which would need to happen for me to feel certain it was the right way to go.

Well, tonight I got a phone call letting me know that the first item on the list has happened! This is incredibly exciting news for the main person involved, as well as for the whole family.

So . . . one down, four to go. Big Grin

-----

My apartment complex management have become anal about appearances. A few weeks ago they sent a notice listing a bunch of different possible violations and their fine value.

One item was regarding the mini-blinds on the windows. Admittedly, the condition of some of the mini-blinds in the complex is atrocious, so I can kind of see their point. But . . I got a fine notice on my door today.

The blinds in my bedroom are fine. Nothing broken, and they hang all the way down.

The blinds in my living room are the problem. While my beloved cat was alive, he destroyed a good number of mini blinds in the various places we lived. I tried to avert that from happening by making sure the blinds were lifted from the windowsill enough for him to stick his head under.

Didn't work. So, I have one blind that has half of about six sections that are broken out. Then, the other mini-blind is stuck in the position where there is about two inches of space between the windowsill and the bottom of it.

So, I have to replace the one mini-blind myself, or have the management come in and replace it for $35.

Ugh!

Thankfully my dad is coming up Sunday so he can be here for my 5k on Monday. We're going to go to Walmart, etc to see if we can beat that price. I'm really hoping for something more in the $10 - 15 range, if not LESS.

What really irks me about this is that I've never been charged for the blinds in any of the other places I've lived - never even came out of my security deposit.

--
I put another few hours on ChaCha tonight. It was a bit on the slow side - had plenty of time to surf the net between questions. Smile Made a couple more dollars while doing what I'd probably be doing anyway. Big Grin

---
I went to deposit some money into my WAMU account today via the ATM. But when I got to the point where I put the deposit envelope into the ATM, I got the message saying that they couldn't help me any further and I needed to contact my financial institution.

I've had a $0 balance in the account for a couple months now, but if it was deactivated (which is the only thing I could think of) then why did it even accept my pin #??

$3.30 Cha Ching :) My 3rd Job

August 28th, 2008 at 03:47 am

I am now proud to say that I hold three jobs. Smile My first job (the one that pays the bills) is of course the one at the oil and gas company.

My second job is the 3 1/2 hours on Friday afternoons at the gym.

My third job, which I just started today, is with ChaCha as an expeditor. In slightly over 90 minutes I made $3.30. I know, not a whole lot of money - but it's money I wouldn't have otherwise made in that time period. Smile

I wish we had Firefox on our computers at work so I could do some ChaCha during lunchtime.

My goal is to make $20/week. So, that translates to roughly an hour a day. If I'm able to put in an extra two hours on the weekends, then I could make up to $100/month (give or take).


--

Remember my savings goal of a Cruise in 2010? Well, I realized today that I'll turn 35 in December of 2010. So I've decided that it will be my 35th Birthday Cruise. I'm thinking that for the next couple of birthdays/Christmases I'll let everyone know that any cash gifts I receive, half of them will go towards my Cruise fund. Big Grin

The Secret - Leave it at home!

August 27th, 2008 at 01:57 am

I'd been getting frustrated with myself - stopping to get something to eat nearly everyday on the way home from work -- usually something not needed at all.

So . . on Sunday I took out all money related items - credit card, debit cards, CVS ECB bucks receipt, cash, etc. Left in my change purse was about $.07.

Monday after work I was famished and was really tempted to stop and get something instead of coming home and making something.
Today, I was really tempted to just stop somewhere and get something.

But guess what? I was forced to overcome the temptation. I couldn't have given in to it even if I'd really wanted to.

So, I think I'll keep my purse money free until Friday. The only reason I'll have my card then is in case I need gas. But . . if I still have a quarter tank left by then, I'll wait till Monday to fill up (new month's budget!) and not take it then either!

---
This past weekend I went to the Heard Natural Science Museum with some other members of the DFWO club. There were a total of 8 of us. It was *very* humid, but not terribly hot. We walked roughly 2 1/2 miles on various trails, and then came inside to the cool air conditioning and checked out the exhibits.

Afterwards we ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I had a grilled eggplant sandwich. OMW it was SOOOOO good! None of us got dessert.

Later Saturday night I went to my mom and stepdads. While my laundry was getting washed, we watched the "Bee Movie" which I'd borrowed from the library. It's so cute - we all really liked it.

On Sunday the three of us went to a play at Theater Arlington called "The Perfect Wedding." The whole audience was laughing out loud through most of it - myself included. Smile

My stepdad has bought season tickets for Theater Arlington for many years. Since he met my mom (and I moved back up this way) he has made sure to include a ticket for me whenever there is a play I'm interested in. Sunday's play had a much younger crowd than usual (normally there is a large contingent of senior aged people, with a small spattering of my age, and a smaller spattering of younger than me.)

Anyway, I've really appreciated that he does this for me. I'm really looking forward to this weekend - I'm going to be taking my mom and stepdad to the local baseball team's home game. I think its playoffs - I've been told it was sold out. These are the same type tickets I got for FREE from my company for my dad's birthday July 5.

I wonder if gamecock's baseball boy will be playing there? Smile

---
I have my next scheduled 5k on Monday - Labor Day. Oy vey! I am so not ready for it! I've really slacked off on my running. The last two runs I did on the treadmill I felt ill most of the rest of the day - even with only having a very small amount of food in my stomach.

I think I'll have to be satisfied with finishing the upcoming race again, and not worry about beating my previous time.

Maybe by my next one (Sept 14th) I'll be back in gear.

Car troubles, new job, extra$, gasoline

August 23rd, 2008 at 05:34 am

Car trouble:

1 - My dad's GMC Jimmy - some kind of ball bearing or some such thing in his front driver side tire broke. He was here, visiting me, we were about a mile from my apartment. Took about three hours, but a friend of his brought a big trailer up and loaded his Jimmy on it. Short term fix cost about $161, long term fix (replacing whole front axle, big and small bearings, etc) cost another $900.

My dad says that the steering is so much more sharp than it had been and is glad he went ahead and did the whole shebang. His Jimmy has close to 200k miles, was bought used, and has been paid for a bit over a year.

2 - My tires -- My tires are low. I know all I need to do to fix this is find a tire pressure gauge somewhere and fill them with air. However, one of the tires had the hubcap put on in a weird way (it must be one of the newer tires) and the stem is not in a reachable spot.

So, I need to go somewhere where they have one of those tools to take the hubcap off and put it back on with the stem reahable. My dad suggests Walmart (where I bought my tires.) However, I really really don't look forward to sitting around for an hour or two just to get air in my tires -- so have been putting it off.

That one tire (with the strangely placed hubcap) is looking really low . . .

-----
New job:
Today was my second shift at the gym. Like last week's, it was completely uneventful. No one came in to workout . . so I had pretty much the whole time to read, or if I'd wanted to, I could have called someone and talked on my cell. The only things I really did was to fold towels that had been in the dryer, and start a new load of towels.

Last week I made it very shortly after 3:00 p.m. Today was a different story. At 2:54 p.m. my main boss saw me walking down the hallway and called me in to ask me to do some copying for him - and he needed it right then.

What was I going to say? Um, can't do that for you because it'll make me late for my other job that pays minimum wage. Yeah, that would be a NO.

So, I ended up getting there 10 minutes late. I'd told E that this was a possibility, but that I didn't think it would really happen. Of course, it did have to happen - luckily not on my first shift!

When I'm sitting in the gym wondering how I can make time pass faster . . I remind myself that the reason I'm doing this is to help me get to my house that much faster, as well as my other savings goals. That helps the time to pass just a bit more easily. Smile

---
My carpooler started making noise a couple months ago about how she didn't like the 7a.m. leaving time and that she was going to find other rides. At the time, I told her that was fine - she needed to do what suited her needs best.

So, for the last 3 weeks or so, she's been riding with me pretty sporadically. Last week she rode with me twice - didn't give me any money. Rolleyes This week she rode with me twice, and gave me $5.

So, it appears that $40 of my extra income pool may dwindle to more like $10 - 15, or perhaps less a month.

The only way to change that would be for me to go in everyday at 8a.m. which would mean no time to workout at the gym in the morning. Not going to happen.

-----
I had to fill up today. I ended up paying an extra $.21 for it because I decided to pass up the station selling for $3.39/gallon to see if the station which had been lower in price the day before would happen to be lower again today. They weren't.

So . . . $3.41/gallon
Bought: 10.449 gallons

Odometer on 8/8/08 = 104,601
Odometer on 8/22/08 = 104,917

So, mileage would be 316/1050

Which equals ~30.09 mph

That is a bit less than last time, but almost all the driving was done in town.

I was also surprised to see a number over 10 gallons when filling up. I think thats the first time I've seen it go over 10 gallons since I can remember. I really thought I had a gas tank slightly smaller than 10 gallons. Maybe I really was smelling fumes coasting into the gas station. Big Grin

Extra $, TT Soda savings

August 15th, 2008 at 01:41 am

Yay! I got another ING referral bonus today:

+$10 for Downpayment fund!

---

I don't drink a lot of soda . . but my mom does! She's addicted to diet Coke. So I got an email from Tom Thumb and one of the deals was buy 2 12 pks of Coke, get 3 12 pks free. I stopped by after work yesterday, and for a total of $12, I bought 5 12 pks of Coke - 4 for my mom, and 1 for me.

Today was my stepdad's birthday, so I called to wish him a happy bd -- and also to tell him about the deal. Smile He's very much like me in that he likes to find ways to save money wherever possible.

The thing I was wondering though -- have 12 packs *really* gone up to $6??? I don't remember the last time I bought a 12 pk, so maybe they've been that much for a while .. but OMW that is a LOT of money for soda.

---
Today at work I was making some copies at the end of the day and just happened to glance in the trash can. There was an empty 20oz bottle of fanta -- so . . I absconded with the lid. Smile (mycokerewards)

---
I was supposed to do my training today after work for the gym. But E called me and said that he'd had a new client who wanted to train at 5:30 today - so would I be willing to train in the morning. Of course, I said yes. Smile

So I'll do my training in the morning, and have my first shift in the afternoon! Look out - here I come - ready to make $6.55/hr! So at 3.5 hrs, plus maybe another 30 minutes training =4 hrs = $26.20. -- Almost a tank of gas! LOL

I will have to find out if they pay weekly or monthly and if they do direct deposit. I hope they do dd, but I kind of doubt it.

Extra$, Wasted but relaxing weekend

August 13th, 2008 at 02:54 am

Cha Ching!

$10 ING referral bonus Smile

----------

So . . I took a vacation day on Monday -- I was going to be Miss Busy Beaver and get my place in tip top shape and get meals planned out for the month . Ya da ya da ya da.

Er . . what did I really do? I read books #9 - 13 of the Plum series, plus a couple other books. I *did* go to church -- and then on Sunday I went to the grand opening of the upper grade campus of the school I used to teach at. (Until this year, grades PreK - 12th were on the same grounds as the church. Now, PreK-6 are on the church grounds, and 7th - 12th are at the new campus.)

I dropped all those books off at the library today on my way home from work - to help ensure I don't incur any NEW library fines! Ack!

---
Today was my last personal training session with E. It was kind of weird - I've been training with him since October.
I think what I'll miss most in all honesty is having someone to talk with a couple hours a week.

---

Thursday afternoon E is going to train me on how the gym policies work, and what I'll be doing. Then Friday afternoon will be my first shift. I'm looking forward to that extra money to put towards my savings goals. Big Grin

---

I'm thinking about stopping my membership with the outdoor club here. The Calendar for July was so full of activities, that I thought I'd have a hard time deciding which things to do. But . . the August calendar has mostly dining out events where it costs $35 min. There had been one free event, but it was canceled.

I think I'll be able to keep myself busy enough on the weekends between the two meetup groups I've joined - and those events will mostly be free.

I haven't completely decided yet though.

Extra $, Gas, etc.

August 9th, 2008 at 02:44 am

This morning my carpooler gave me $10 -- off it goes to my Extra Monies fund. Smile
----

After work today I stopped and got gas.

On August 1, my odomoter was: 104,333

Today, my odomoter was: 104,601

That is a difference of 268 miles

I bought 9.382 gallons on Aug. 1.
Today, I bought 8.135 gallons.

A difference of: 1.247 gallons

So . . my gas mileage is 268/8135 =~31mpg

Am I figuring this correctly?

Gas was $3.62/gallon for a total of $29.52

-----

I stopped by the library today - dropped off items and picked up some more. I unfortunately had forgotten to take two books which were due today with me - so I'll get them in tomorrow on the way home from church. $.70 fine. Frown

One of the books I had to return today was my Vegetarian Slow Cooker book. I made copies of 6 of the recipes that I may want to try.

----

Last night I made a start on my Shape It Up weekend by doing a trash run and a dish run.

So far tonight, all I've accomplished was actually eating one of the Veggie Bean Burgers I made a couple weeks ago (and froze!) to see if it was edible Smile enough to include in my meal plans. It was. Smile

I think #9 is calling my name quite loudly right now. I did make some progress in my plan . . . Hello? Stephanie? Yep I guess I'll be checking out your latest adventure here shortly. Smile

---
I got an email today from the person who bought the Brita pitcher - she'd picked it up from the PO this morning. She was so happy to have gotten it so fast. I guess I can't begrudge the extra shipping cost (and reduced profit) too much. ;D


Spending, Thinking, etc

August 8th, 2008 at 01:38 am

Grocery shopping: $25.61

I stopped at Walmart tonight. They had the Boca Burger's in a bun 2 for $4. That made each complete sandwich $1. I bought 5 boxes of them. (They're pretty good - I've had them before.)

As I was driving home I was thinking about how much I could spend on my various meals per month if I didn't have too much variance.

30 days worth of breakfast - 2 large cannisters of oatmeal + 2 large containers of egg sub, maybe 4lbs of bananas = ~$20

Work lunches - 20 days - 20 Amy's burritos from Target at $1.69 ($33.80), 1 large bag frozen veggies ($2) -- ~$35.80

Home lunches (10 days) - pb & j sandwiches, boca burgers, etc - $10

Supper - 2 bags Quiona, 1 bag brown rice, 1 bag lentils, frozen veggies ~$30

Snacks - (string cheese, almonds,) ~$10

So, theoretically, I could get by on less than $110/month. Work lunches could cost even less when I make my own burritos (but not that much less really).

So, where does all the other money go in my grocery budget? Let's see . . last month I broke down and bought a pizza from Pizza Hut . . I also found a store that sold Nestle Treasures & had Orange Crush Jelly Belly's . . . I bought a couple varieties of squash (expensive stuff!) . . . I bought some unhealthy junkfood items . . plus other things not coming to mind right now.

---

Before I even got started with all this thinking this afternoon, I'd asked to take Monday off as one of my vacation days.

I've gotten more and more behind in my housework and haven't been preparing meals ahead of time -- which has led to my doing a lot of the impulse convenience food shopping of the past few weeks.

This weekend I only am planning on going to church Sat. morning, then Sun afternoon I'll be doing my first RAoK meetup with the Salvation Army.

That means I'll have from 11:30 a.m. on Saturday until 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, and then all day Monday to be productive.

My plan is to give my apartment a through cleaning by Sunday afternoon. Then, on Monday I am going to plan out my meals for the rest of the month - attempting to use ONLY what I have on hand already as much as possible.

If I accomplish both the goal of having my apartment in Impress a Stranger Shape, and have my meals planned out (and prepared ahead as much as possible) for the month by 2 p.m. on Monday, then I'm going to treat myself to a movie. -- I want to go see "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2". Smile

What that means is that when I get home tomorrow (after stopping at the library) with the 9th book in the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series, I will have to make a decision between sitting down and reading that first, or get a head start on the cleaning. Smile If last weekend repeats itself, Stephanie Plum will win.

Extra$, Helping out Dad, spending, gas

August 7th, 2008 at 02:51 am

I posted the Brita pitcher that I'd had listed on Craigslist on another site I frequent. Someone bought it - $15 + shipping and handling. Great!

So yesterday I took off from work a bit early and stopped by the PO to mail it. The postal worker was miffed at me because I hadn't taped the box. Understandable I guess, but I also remembered from when I was selling my teacher supplies that they always wanted to check what was being mailed ++ I didn't have any tape. So . . . I ended up mailing it Priority to get the "free" tape (I also misjudged the weight of it w/the box - so an extra $5.40 in shipping alone).

So, $21.10 - $.92 paypal fee - $11.60 Priority Shipping = net profit of $8.62. Frown

I think I'm about ready to take all my Spanish materials to half-price and see what they'll give me for them. Even if it's only $10 for the lot, it'll be more than I have now, right?

Or . . if anyone is interested in various computer programs for learning Spanish + books, let me know. I also have a box of 10 Brita Pitcher filters I want to sell.

---
Last night when I got home I was all settled in and reading "Hard Eight" by Janet Evanovich when I got a call from my dad. He was needing new ink for his printer, and he couldn't get his old cartridge refilled at Walgreen's because it was leaking.

So, he'd found one on ebay for $8 and wanted to know if it was a good deal. We spent the next hour talking it through over the phone, then eventually yahoo messenger when his phone died. I tried to talk him through using my paypal account to buy the item because he wanted to do "buy it now" but it wasn't letting him add his address. Finally I told him to email the seller, apologize, and say he was a newbie ebayer and would pay as soon as possible.

Tonight I went ahead and set up a paypal account for him (with his input over the phone) and paid for the item via his account.

Trying to help someone do this over the phone is NOT my idea of a nice relaxing evening. But at least it is now done - hopefully the ink cartridge will come quickly.

---
I've done some spending the last few days - unnecessary spending - mostly on food.

Sunday - Tuesday: $35.96
Wed - no spending Smile

$4.56 of that was lunch on Tuesday because I forgot to bring my lunch to work. The remainder of the money was almost completely not needed and not good for me. Frown

I'm going to deduct it from my grocery budget and move on - but one way or another, I'm NOT going over budget this month. I've got more than enough food already in the house that needs to be eaten.

*Almost forgot -- I got out one of my last large containers of eggs on Monday morning to make my oatmeal/egg breakfast. I didn't get back into the kitchen till Tuesday night (other than to grab a banana). Guess what was still out on the counter? Frown At least it was only 1/4 full, so not a whole container wasted.

---
My gas gage has been acting funky on me, so I'm not really sure what to think. But today it was hovering between 1/2 full and a bit more than 3/4 of a 1/2 full after having driven 220 miles. Normally 1/2 tank gives me around 160 miles.

So, either my gas gage is acting *really* funky OR I'm getting darn good gas mileage!

I'll find out the real story on Friday when I fill up again. Smile

--
I think I've decided to go with the Garmin Nuvia 200. I'm going to wait until my current cc statement closes to buy it - that way I can budget money in August and September for it. That'll happen around the 15th of the month.

This isn't a WANT it is a NEED!

August 3rd, 2008 at 07:15 pm

So today at 1:00 I was supposed to be arriving at, or already be at the nursing home for my first meetup with this particular group.

Instead, I just walked in through my front door a few minutes ago.

How'd that happen?, you may ask.

I left my mom and stepdad's a bit after 11 a.m. which *should* have given me plenty of time to get home, put my clothes away and change.

Instead, somehow I got it in my brain that I needed to take 121 S to get home. 45 minutes later after going through parts of Fort Worth TWICE, I finally stopped and got directions to get back to a familiar road.

So, what is this NEED I'm saying is not a want anymore? Some kind of a GPS device - a foolproof one!

Today was especially annoying because I've driven this route MANY MANY times and so I would think that my normal directional cluelessness wouldn't come into play. But, it did.

So, I ended up wasting a whole bunch of gasoline, plus a whole bunch of time -- and am now going to be a no-show for my first RAoK meetup. Frown

Please give me some suggestions as to the least expensive way for me to go in a car GPS unit. Knowing me, I probably need something that will say the directions out loud - maybe yell at me "get in the left lane for the next turn!".

---

In other news . . my mom, stepdad and I went to see "Mama Mia" last night. It wasn't a great movie, but it was a fun movie. I thought the girl who played Meryl Streep's daughter was really pretty, and it was kind of weird/fun to see Pierce Brosnan breaking out into song. Smile

My stepdad had some more coke codes for me to enter, so we're now up to 154 pts - nearly halfway to our first movie ticket. Smile

eh :(

August 2nd, 2008 at 09:30 pm

So, I made the fruit salad. I thought it turned out pretty good - colorful.

I went to the vegetarian/vegan brunch meetup. I think I was the only one who had any fruit salad. Oh well - I'm going to take it to my mom and stepdad's tonight.

The food was good. There were maybe about 13 people all together. Everyone seemed pretty friendly and everything. But . . you know how sometimes there are like two or three people who talk non-stop? Yeah, there were a couple of those kind of people there.

If I'm in a group of people I know well, or especially in a smaller group of more like 4 or 5, I can be talkative. But get me in a group of people I don't know, esp. when there are a couple of non-stop talkers - I end up having little to nothing to say.

I'm kind of reminded about why I didn't keep going to these group things before. My first reaction in a new group is quiet, shy, etc. It was so much easier to make friends in school.

heh. I was talking with this one guy. He told me what he did for a living, and then asked me the same thing. Not two seconds after my telling him that I work at an oil and gas company, he was gone. Rolleyes
I checked his profile on the website - he's buhuddist (sp?) so . . just as well.

Here's hoping that my adventure tomorrow at the nursing home will go better.

Spending, A Woo Hoo!, and a couple ?'s

August 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 am

Today's spending:

Gas: $3.73/gallon - 9.382 gallons bought
...........=$35.08 Odomoter: 104,433

Groceries: $30.59

Bought: red/green grapes, 3 bananas, 4 red del apples, 1 can mandarin oranges, lg cannister old-fashioned oatmeal, 5 16oz containers of egg whites, 1 32oz mixed frozen veggies, 1 box Morningstar veggie links, lg container Rice Dream milk, 1 sm box Junior Mints

---

Woo Hoo! Remember how in my last couple posts I mentioned about how I was trying to figure out whether I should go with the quarterly membership plan at the gym, or cough up the money for a full year?

Well, today near the end of my workout session with E, he confirmed with me that I do have the job (after work on Fridays 3 1/2 hrs) starting a week from this coming Friday. He also mentioned that since I'd be working at the gym, my membership would be FREE!

So, not only does that mean I don't need to pay for the quarterly fee (roughly $64), it also means that I don't have to put it in my budget to save up for the next quarterly due!

Yay!!!

---

When I was doing my grocery shopping today, I noticed something that slightly annoyed me. First of all, Wal-mart has stopped carrying the large container of generic egg substitute. Wah! Secondly, the next least expensive brand that is in a large container cost $4.89 for 32 oz, while the 16oz containers cost $2.44/each. So, you would at first assume it would be cheaper to buy the 32oz version + greener (due to less trash) - but obviously you would be wrong!

----
?'s

I'm going to a Vegan/Vegetarian meetup brunch tomorrow. I'm planning on bringing a fruit salad, but I'm not sure if the mixture I'm thinking of will work right or not.

Here's the fruit I was thinking of: red/green grapes, sliced bananas, chopped apples, mandarin oranges, maybe some canned pineapple chunks?

Is there anything that I should take out? Or do you think all those tastes/textures would work ok?

Next ?

At the gym, I will be an independent contractor. This year I will make less than $600. Do I have to do a Schedule C for it? Or can it be listed under "other income" for tax purposes?

Next year, I would make a bit less than $1200. Would that be enough to make me have to pay self-employment taxes?

One more ?

Anyone have any idea why my Cruise 2010 ticker is so long? It's cutting part of my sidebar off! I checked the code and it looks the same as the other tickers. Weird.