Looking for extra income?

I'm not sure how all this economic downturn has affected you and your retirement, or your plans for retirement, but I can tell you that I was really excited recently when I found an online site where I can put my writing skills to work for some extra income. Some assignments are very long-term, others may be completed in just a few hours. You decide what you are interested in. If you are a programmer, coder, transcriber, technical writer, creative writer, or virtual assistant, you can probably find something on oDesk.com that fits your skills. You can even take tons of tests for free and post your results to show potential employers on the site, and that can boost your chances of getting hired. Rather than try to tell you everything here, why not just go to the site by clicking on this square link below, and see for yourself. I hope you find JUST what you need here. Let me know how it goes, ok?

Just a Quick Note

Life has become far more hectic since I retired last December. It is a bit surprising just how busy you can get when you don't have a job. I had visions of sleeping late, sitting by the pool with a good book, having a good meal with a glass of wine, staying up too late. Actually, I must admit that I have done all of those things since I retired, but only on a very few occasions. Fortunately I have been very busy with projects around the house and traveling with family, so that other boring lifestyle I dreamed of after retirement hasn't plagued me yet. One thing I do regret is that I haven't found time to keep in touch or to keep this blog up to date like I had hoped. But it is very important to me to thank all of you for your emails and comments. I'm surprised how many of you will email me but are too ...shy to comment on the blog for others to see.
We just returned from the first two-week vacation we've taken in our 37 years of marriage. It was lovely, but I'm happy to sleep in my own bed. I will now be able to schedule some writing time I hope, so I look forward to hearing from you. Keep in touch, subscribe to the RSS feed, and let me know what's on your mind.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

I have left my post. I've abandoned my writing. I have grown tired.
All of these might have been suitable titles for this post, but the sad fact is that I have just been too busy and could never find both the time and energy to sit here and create. I will soon be retiring and perhaps I will find some time then, though to tell the truth, retirement looks even busier than working every day. There are things to repair that have been overlooked or ignored. There are things to paint that I have conveniently put off. There are bathrooms to upgrade. There is ALWAYS yardwork to be done.

Actually, I don't feel too bad about not posting anything here since August, because I appear to be the only one who ever visits this blog anyway. That's not a whiny complaint, just an observation. I haven't done much to encourage visitors or promote the site in any way. I write as an outlet, and because practice is important. I used to believe that practice makes perfect, but then I learned that nobody is perfect, so I quit practicing. But now I plan to find time to practice and if you have wandered back here again, I hope you will find something interesting to read. Even more important, I hope you will PLEASE leave a comment or at least say hello. Til then (December 19th) I won't try to write more.

The Winter Doldrums

To those of you who regularly read my ramblings here, I apologize for my recent absence. Though I am humbled to think that anyone would purposely read anything I write, I do appreciate your kind indulgence and try to provide some sort of verbiage here on a fairly constant, if irregular, basis. But the unavoidable fact is that no matter how sleek the sail boat, without some wind to fill the sails it's just a place to sit. I hit a patch of nothingness recently, no wind, or some might say, no hot air to fill my sails. I have just been sitting, taking a small break.
If life is a grand experiment, then mine is still in progress, though at times the progress is too small to measure by any conventional means.

Since all that I write and publish in this space is free, then perhaps I cannot be fired. I hope to soon be fired up though, enough at least to write something. Ideas are percolating, vague thoughts are forming, fingers are itching to get at the keyboard. But for about three weeks I've been just coasting, both in terms of writing and music. If this was a paying gig, I would be near starvation at this point, but fortunately I do still having a J O B. And I haven't been completely idle. My wife, who is enjoying a hopefully brief hiatus from gainful employment, has kept me fairly busy at home sorting and sifting through piles of "stuff", mostly mine, and we have begun to recapture our office/exercise room. Soon we will start on the music room where the wallpaper has already begun to remove itself, either out of boredom with my music or a realization that it is no longer wanted. Then there is the foyer, the dining room, the guest bath, the master bath, and ...well the list is endless. Like the crews that paint the Golden Gate Bridge, once we get to the end of the list, if ever we do, it will be time to start over. Somewhere along the way, I will try to write a few lines here, and I hope you will find time to read them, and more importantly, to comment on them and contribute your own thoughts. This has been a too-solitary work so far. I have hoped that it would become more of a forum.