What I've been doing with my portfolio

These days are truly stressful, with the whole financial world going berserk, and I am not immune to the emotional backing and forthing of the markets. I promised myself I'd buy at 10,500 but couldn't bring myself to do it, and then I look over today and we're below 9600 and still I can't pull the trigger, though I've upped my allocation to equities in my 401k to 70% from 40% since, perforce, my cash and fixed income allocation has risen recently.

But I haven't sold a share since last October. What I have done is this:

• Put a roof on our house (this was our stimulus money plus a bunch more)
  
• Am getting the trim painted
  
• Redid the bathroom (that was back in March, back when Bear went down, which seems cute in the rearview)
• Donated $500 to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. This was when I was concerned about my job and wanted to force my employer to make a matching contribution (which they did)
• Donated an undisclosed amount to Josh Stein for NC State Senate, and some to Barack Obama too, I'm pretty sure
  
• Got outbid for a flannel shirt on Ebay
• Put 19k of my 401k in a Russian mutual fund, which makes sense given my background, but has turned ugly. This I regret.
  
• Cleaned out our closets and took clothes down to donation boxes.
• Continued to feed my compost pile with as much good brown and green matter as I can find
  

Down the block from us multiple households have been doing a lot of work on their houses, including the drab green house owned by the crazy Chinese guy which moldered empty throughout the boom period.

Up in Minnesota, a high school classmate of mine is a little concerned because she's building a house and needs to sell the one she's in in the spring, recognizing that, though she bought it 10 years ago, she still might take a loss. She takes comfort, however, in the fact that she is employing the people who are building the house.

One of these days this idiocy will end.