I said all of the above. As a widow on fixed income, with small portfolio that has taken a big hit since January, it is very difficult to know what to do. On top of that, the HVAC guys came over today to do the annual maintenance on the furnaces to get them ready for winter, and my main one, which is 17yrs. old and original to the house has a nice crack in the heat exchanger, which means it has to be replaced. Cracks like that kill unsuspecting people. So, now I have to figure out how to pay for it…bummer….

I cannot believe it’s been 6 /12 months that I’ve been down with a shattered foot and then my brother’s death….and my book, which I worked so hard to complete in the UCLA writing program, and with so much terrific support, and to get edited by a literary agent/ace….has been set aside when was my driving force. I realized that my slight ambivalence is that I want to hop around the country selling it about as much as I was to let terrorists using jackhammers drill on my teeth. And the conventional wisdom is that you ‘must.’ I’ve already traveled 150K miles a year around the US and that is no longer my idea of fun. A week ago met this lady at Peet’s coffee, she was working on the same model Apple laptop that I have, and we spoke. She was an art buyer and did this blog on blogspot.com for free and as can see has advertising: http://www.sfgirlbybay.com/ Scroll down on the right side and you’ll see WWII-era posters she sells on etsy.com She got the posters off public domain and had a friend silk screen them. And she recommends a nicely styled IKEA frame and how to mat them. She’s made 85K on the posters in the last nine months. I’d never heard of etsy.com and checked it’s stats on Alexa.com…..it’s in the top 2,000 sites high-traffic sites in the world. Then I noticed (this is days ago) that they sell ebooks on etsy for $12. the seller keeps most of that. Hmm. If I sell a $20 book through traditional channels I make $2. a book and agent gets 10% of that. And I’m excellent at e-marketing. If I sell 8,333 books that’s $100,000 to me. I started looking at ebooks which have always dismissed and realized…that’s perfect for me. I don’t care at all to be a traditional author and all the work that goes with that….love to write and create, not go talk about it and be a ‘personality.’ More interested in making $$ and producing things that inspire/entertain/help. I immediately bought up some of the logical ebook domain names. This is a growing field and if anyone wants those particular domains they’ll have to buy them from me. Plus am doing another blog…and it’ll combine ebooks with wine and design….and create a Face Book group (besides friends group) to support it. So now am off to my friend’s on the beach and can work on just that…am finishing up current projects for wineries and then no more. They can advertize on my new site. I want my income to become 80% from passive streams. Ebooks will be a multi-billion business….I’m off to become an expert in this.

In the face of these economic times, what has been your greatest rethink? Good question. I actually thought I could retire in 15 years. Good luck on that one—the economy might be better by then, maybe not. The stress is making everyone ill, in my opinion. Seriously. In the same week that my friend at work died, another person who had been there 20 plus years was fired because he went off the deep end. He had been warned, but stress can make a person ill, physically and mentally. I have seen signs of stress in so many people I care about. Personally, I haven’t been able to sleep. I am looking forward to Obama as President. I think that will relieve some of this stress.

We don’t owe much, compared to others, but we have little left after a rocky few years beginning in 2001. I have recently lost my small writing job for a local paper and my husband’s hours have been radically cut. It’s scary.

Not buying anything I don’t need. I did need some purple suede boots. And a black sweater. But I’m finding a full closet and not having to own the latest thing means I can avoid the malls. Guess I’m not doing much for the economy, eh?

I am a disabled nurse on social security disability—-I worry they may take my social security and medicare away from me. One of my medicines cost 450 month—I could never make it…