I especially like her gentle admonition, "It's nice to share." I mostly keep that in my head as I am about to scoop every last yogurt or bag of cookies off the sale rack. If Laura is with me she tends to be a little more direct, "Mom, don't be so greedy! It's embarrassing."

Do you remember the Moody Blues, Question of Balance ~ .....and all the love you've been giving, has all been meant for you.....

Yes, mouth-running-in-awkward-situations (and that horrible feeling of being outside yourself as you observe them observing you like roaches were pouring out of your mouth), buying gifts for others to soothe myself, that little girl who could never have enough stuffed animals and still sleeps with some......

Oh my $200.00 book that I couldn't remember buying!!! It's buried under other stuff now, no longer sitting out as a reminder to WAKE UP, don't hit that confirm purchase button. It does need to go back to a place of prominence by the computer. 🙂

We are having extreme cold with wind chills in the teens but that is a blessing compared to our friends in New England.

The dogs have been going out with coats for 15 minute periods. Getting them in and out is like having a bunch of kids trooping back in tracking snow.

Yesterday I filled the truck with trash for the dump before the snow started. I won't get there til later in the week but at least it's out of the garage.

I made a few foolish purchases in December (well really a lot) that I had good intentions of using. Some of them remain unopened and packed in another truck for donations. I have never had a crockpot and thought it would be good to get one. Then I thought about how those tempting aromas would drive the dogs crazy all day and figured somebody else will really put it to better use. Another thing was an air mattress, queen size. The mattress I got about 15 months ago is uncomfortable now and I thought this purchase would be like a cheap version of a sleep number bed. There is no room to put it. So again a nice brand new thing that some people needing to put together a home can use. I ordered some wrangler jeans which are good, sturdy, heavy duty, real denim. Nothing stretchy or fancy about them. I still have some from high school that I wore riding all the time. Love them. The new ones were way too big. I thought about trying to shrink them (I hate returning things) but thought that's another brand new item someone will love to have.

I also found a great sale on clumping litter which I normally don't use. I overbought and hate it. After two boxes I'm going back to my stash of Fresh Start clay litter and will donate the clumping kind to a cat rescue group.

And I overbought for Laura for Valentine's Day. Half a dozen big-eyed beanie animals in reds, whites and pinks and a huge red heart box of candy.

I hope it was just winter blues and that the temptations won't be as great when we can get outside more. Online shopping ~ convenient and dangerous for hoarders.

I'm getting back on top of maintenance and making small inroads into letting go of more items.

I took a good hard look at my actions in the past month and have a plan to nip anything that would trigger buying in the bud.

Now that snow and bitter cold are in this region I am very happy for all the winter prep my daughter and I did. It makes me feel safer which takes a lot of stress and fear out of my system.

Yesterday's chores went well. I got a lot of laundry done and will be caught up today. I got some food prepared and Laura and I will have a simple, warm meal tonight.

Today I'm planning on daily chores plus weekly chores. If time I'd like to get to the bank and the dump.

Again, I need to be practicing by little bits at a time to keep catching up and moving forward.

Yesterday's small bites at getting back on track worked well. The bites grew into finished meals without exhaustion.

Laundry is behind so I'll try and keep that going. I need to turn some leftovers into freezable meals.

Much colder weather is headed our way. It's too cold already to be washing litter boxes in the garage so I have to move that process into the laundry room. Then clean boxes still have to be filled in the garage with baking soda and fresh litter and carried back inside to different areas. Good thing I have my daughter to help!

This evening my nephew has invited me out for pizza. He's moving out of the area this weekend so it was very nice that with all he has to do and everyone he has to see he wanted some extra time with me. We just spent Christmas together. He's such a loving young man and I have trusted him so much to help me clean my house. I will very much miss his laughter, his hugs, his joy in life and the pure delight he takes in romping with dogs of all sizes.

I will try not to be overly influenced by the consumerism and overblown expectations of the holidays. I will enjoy the sparkly beauty of the lights and decorations and try not to act on the feelings of I should be doing more. I will keep my focus on the beauty of Christmases past ~ some excitement, quiet reflection, the smells of winter air and evergreens, the simplicity of pine cones, holly berries and a red bow on a wreath.

To banish any feelings of regret I will keep in mind as I take in objects for donation that someone will be delighted to use it themselves or to give it as a gift.

Saturdays and Sundays are just daily chores for maintaining with a little time spent in purging. Today I'm going to get into one bathroom and hit it hard ~ deeper cleaning, more tossing of some stored things in cabinets.

On Friday I have weekly and bi-weekly house cleaning chores.

Daily animal related tasks.

Daily 4 loads of laundry, people and animal.

Laura and I will be wrapping some gifts for a party she is going to tomorrow.

There are some big snowflakes twirling down, very pretty.

I'm not a fan of Black Friday so won't be running any errands today.

Happy Regular Friday everyone!

Yes, my helper is the best at cleaning up the squishy messes. And without her exceptional attitude and joy in life my world would be very dark indeed. So I'm sure Santa will make it down our chimney again with a little something for everyone. 🙂

Laura is, at this moment, going thru her books to find good ones to wrap for needy children. And with a beautiful snow today (big, fat flakes looking beautiful not threatening) I was enough in the spirit to pick up 2 fat, little Christmas trees, one for us and one for the pets.

The fridge set up from last Saturday moved to today is postponed again due to weather. But I'm ok with that. Pretty snow, holiday spirit and all. Those guys just want to be safely home with their families and enjoy the smells of evening before Thanksgiving cooking. I'm doing pies here to take to my brother's tomorrow.

And thanks, Dave, for cheering on Jackson. He was so happy to go out in the snow today he looked like a big, oaf puppy. Digging his nose in it, tossing his head, bouncing and slipping. The other furry dogs loved it too. Baby Buffy (little Pomeranian, not my daughter) looks too cute with snowflakes sitting on top of her thick, black fur. The pugs were wearing their bright pink and blue winter coats but they were having none of it and almost immediately came back it to curl up on warm beds.

Today is a new day and it will be one of some easy work, enjoyable playtime and renewed pleasure in life.

take good care all ~

Today is a new day and I'm losing track of time.

I'm keeping up with maintenance and getting tiny bits of other things done too so that feels good.

I have some errands to run including a truck full of trash to go to the dump. Teeny Tiny Tina, a misshapen pug who looks like a toy English Mastiff, is having an eye problem. Some drops from the vet should clear that up. All other fur babies doing well including Old Kitty Annie Fannie. Jackson, the 100 lb. German Shepherd, is getting around much better and doing some stairs so I'm very thankful for that.

Laura is her usual cheerful self helping clean and trash stuff and getting excited to do some decorating for Christmas. We've scaled back a lot and I wouldn't mind doing even less but she still has the sparkle and wonderment of the magic of the season. Each year I want to say, "Honey, I'm Santa, and I don't really want to do it this year." And each year I cave and fill the stockings.

I really don't want to fill all those animal stockings so I think I'm going to say that there were some rescue animals who really needed extra Christmas love this year and Santa was hoping he could take our pets' treats and give it to the other babies. Laura loves to fulfill the wishes on angel trees so I think she'll be happy thinking Santa has shared our dog/cat stuff with others. To make it not a total lie I'll put a few toys in the donation box at Petsmart.

The new fridge came on the early end of the time frame. The guy asked where the shut off valve was to cut off house water. I didn't know. He checked but there are so many pipes with water treatment tanks and AC drainage and add-ons he couldn't figure it out. He reached for the one thing I knew, one of the outside shut-offs and I said wait I'll get my plumber in. He was very nice but wasn't going to wait, he had lots of other places to be. He left the new fridge in the garage. It's the wrong color. Oh well, the least of the problems.

I asked if he could come back later today but he said his manager has to set the schedule. Which I knew for sure meant maybe a week out.

So I put in an emergency call to the plumber to come show me how to turn off the water. Which isn't an emergency but I don't want to wait 3 or 4 days for an appt with him. Guy was nice said he really didn't want to charge me emergency price for that and he would talk me thru it.

I tried to follow but just didn't get it. He said take a pic of your system and send it to me and I can tell you then. I said I have to get my daughter to get her digital camera but I don't know how to send it to you. He laughed and said, not a camera, use your phone. I said no can do, I have a flip phone and all I can do is talk on it. So he's on his way.

I called the delivery department and the soonest they can come to set up the fridge is Wednesday. I knew it. Then I called the salesperson, explained the situation and asked if he could get things moved faster. After more calls he said the best they can do is put me on a waiting list for a cancellation fill-in if one comes up on Tuesday. Otherwise Wednesday it is. He said they're super busy with people trying to get their new stoves/ovens/fridges before Thanksgiving.

In the meantime our food is in the garage which is very cold now but the temps are going back up to 70 over the next couple days. And all this complaining is really pretty stupid because I have another kitchen in the basement. So we'll move the food down there. I could have said screw the main floor kitchen fridge and leave it broken. But we use that one all the time and it seemed very hoarder like to keep a big broken appliance.

Under the old fridge was filth like I haven't dealt with in a long time. That's going to be a twice yearly cleaning from now on.

I had to close my eyes and just breathe for a bit. Tell myself it's ok, could be so much worse, live and learn more lessons and I am not terribly stupid for having to learn those lessons. Still a lot to be thankful for in the situation ~ I have another fridge, I can pay the plumber, the roads are clear (no snow to worry about holding up delivery), I got under the fridge well-cleaned, the house hasn't had a major water problem where not knowing where that water shut-off valve is would have made a terrible mess.

Instead of letting the complications stress me out and screw me up for a few days I'm dealing with it and going to get right back on my usual cleaning and dejunking. 🙂

(Plumber just left, taught me a lot, wrote stuff down. Years ago I would have berated myself with no mercy. Now I'm just proud I have learned how to take care of my home better.)

The new refrigerator is coming tomorrow and today I need to make sure there is plenty of room for getting in and out. The foyer has large dog beds that have to be moved. I'll move a kitchen table and chairs out of the way. The kitchen will get some extra cleaning and I'll have some supplies set up to scrub the floor under the fridge in the time the guys take the old one out and bring the new one in.

Daily chores also.

Today is a new day and I am grateful for that. (Reminder to self ~ if you do nothing else, take your meds!)

Yesterday I got a lot more done than I expected. Washed some floors, did some laundry, filled dog food bins inside, made some clean litter boxes, ate a healthy dinner.

Today I'll get back on track with other daily chores, clean a bathroom and get some cleaning done in kitchen.