Resume Gold?

I read a little article on Talent Zoo about age-proofing your resume. Apparently this is important for 20-somethings and people over 45. The author suggested leaving off the dates. Does this really work? If I got a resume without dates on it I'd be suspicious right away. "What's this guy hiding? Prison?" I think it's pretty easy to tell from a resume if someone is young and inexperienced. And when hiring for a junior position one doesn't expect a lot of experience. According to the article, the ideal amount of experience is 12 years. Anything older than 15, as well as graduation dates, should be eliminated. My first thought is that for me this would be kind of tragic since the first 12 years of my career were spent on Cheesebrough-Pond's and Procter & Gamble. Resume gold. But I do realize that the gold has now turned to lead and should probably be jettisoned. On the plus side, I do look a hell of a lot younger than I am. People are always shocked at my age. Usually the cashier's at Aldi and the girls at school. "Why Miss Cynthia, you older than my mother. I never would have thought that. For real?"

TV is free

It's true. TV does come through the air, and it's free! Isn't that so much more twenty-first century than having it come through cable and costing $100+/month? With the exceptions of Dexter, Man Men and Being Human it's all as it was prior to the disconnection. Thanks to the gifts of three converter boxes, our old TiVo and Comedy Central on line. We should have done this years ago.

Upside Down

We learned last week that we're now upside down in our mortgage. Reason being that TWO years ago, Hamilton County readjusted our property taxes based on the purchase price of the house in 2006 -- AND THEY NEVER TOLD US. For the past TWO years, Chase (the holder of our mortgage) was taking the extra funds needed to meet the new tax base out of our escrow account. Neither Hamilton County nor Chase ever notified us. Seems to me like this kind of thing should be illegal. Now that the escrow account has been COMPLETELY depleted, our monthly mortage payment has risen $302. We can appeal this assessment; but only between January 1 and March 31st. Long story short, we're screwed. $302 may not sound like a lot when you're making big advertising money, but it's a tremendous amount when you've been unemployed for a year and a half -- and are looking at making very little money for quite a long time to come.

So we're getting rid of cable TV, the land-line, the newspapers, all subscriptions, the Y membership. All along I've been thinking it's some kind of miracle we've done as well as we have since I lost my job. Just by giving up vacations, restaurants, entertaining, retirement contributions, and college fund contributions we were able to get along pretty much as before. And really I've hardly "felt" it -- what with being at school 40 - 50 hours a week, JJ's new school/football, volunteering and church stuff, my life is fuller than it's ever been. But the pinch has come.