We should be entering a warmer period starting today. Sounds good to me. Winter hasn't made me as grumpy as it used to but I am still no fan. I want spring and summer. I want my garden growing. I want to go out in a tee shirt and jeans (or shorts around the house) instead of layers of turtlenecks and sweats with a shawl thrown on top.

Nimue Brown has a good post on the problems of small space living. I can relate to most of it. She downsized from a three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment which was stuffed to the max. When I joined her in the two bedroom townhouse apartment we now live in we had to merge her stuff with the contents of my two bedroom house. A lot of stuff went out (most to friends and family) and more as time has passed here and out needs changed. It is still a tight fit but not so tight as when we moved in and we have room for a few extras. But it has taken time. And now we might see some discarded piece of furniture and think it would be a nice addition but, in almost the same breath, ask where would we put it.

The Slate discusses a paper being developed by economists that casts a new light on why wages aren't rising for American workers. The authors' answer: we have a shortage of employers. On an intuitive level that makes sense. Over the last few years the number of businesses going out of business has exceeded the number of new startups and the number of new businesses each year has been declining. Those are statistics that used to be frequently featured in economics news but seem to have disappeared of late.

Anyone surprised by this poll? I'm not and I expect those numbers to drop more.

Means testing for disaster aid??? Apparently and it only applies to Puerto Rico. If I lived in Puerto Rico and they had another vote of whether to become a state or a separate nation, I would vote the latter.

Crabby Old Lady (aka, Ronni Bennett) at Time Goes By has a hit a bull's eye with her comments on the internet. I have gotten to the point of uttering a (fairly) mild expletive and goin on to another site. If the story interests me enough I google it and find another site (or two or three) read the material. I have also started culling my subscriptions. Sometime ago I pretty much stopped watching TV. I am beginning to curtail my internet surfing.