Let It Ride

I remember Mom once told me that, “however the new year catches you, it’s how things will be for the whole year”.  And after hearing that, I would work myself into a tizzy every New Year’s Eve trying to clean up my room in the hope that it would remain clean and orderly for the whole year to come.  This year I am just going to let it ride.

I’ll not have read through the books I stacked according to my reading preferences.  Besides, I’ve bought new books which intercepted the “to read” list. 

I’ll not have washed and dried, folded and put away every single piece of laundry.  Quite frankly, I have no idea where all these clothes were before laundry day.  I have never had all clothes put away at the same time.  I wonder what that is like. I had washed and bagged the excess linens, wonderful vintage pieces I inherited from mom.  I just need to put them in the closet after it's cleaned out.  Um, no, not happening this year.  

I'll not have made my contributions by this year's end. There are clothes set aside in a corner for donating. They need to be neatly packed, itemized, and labeled.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen either. 

I’ll not have worked out the quandary of what to do with my collections of plastic bottles.  I was tossing plastic water and soda bottles into the general recycling bin when someone suggested I should claim the deposit instead.  I did that once.  It was not a windfall but I was thrilled to get money back.  But now that I no longer have access to a car, that cash back will be spent getting to and from the redemption center.  Well, it seemed like a great idea at the time, but the bottles are piling up.  Some are counted and bagged and just waiting for the brainstorm that will lead them out of the house and onto the deposit site.  Maybe I will go back to putting them in the building recycling bins.  Before this year is over?  Nope, not going to happen.

And I’ll not have “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”  This year brought to completion coursework for floral design.  This project was not without its contribution to my clutter as well as the materials from stained glass, beading, and canasta courses.  Yep, bought stuff for card playing.  My living room, kitchen and bedroom have been co-opted.  That adage is a nice thought, but I’m keeping it real.

Frankly, I am not planning to do anything with the hope of a new year catching me.  It will be what it will be.  I'll just, let it ride!

Clean Up, Company's Coming!

There is nothing like company to make you clean up. I am house cleaning.  Same stuff, different day, everyday, but today I have to do something about the clutter, company's coming.

Cluttered, for now!

I sit in this place day in and day out knowing that I must get rid of the clutter.  And while I am thinking of that I distract myself with something else, like a catalogue since just the thought of clearing away the clutter causes me great fatigue.   Nothing gets done.  While starring at it all, well not all since it is all over, I wonder how it came to be.  Then I spy a box I have sitting on top of a wardrobe in my living room.  It contains two sets of mini decorative plates which I am assuming that at one point I thought it was a nice idea, but for the life of me I cannot remember why I have two sets. And why are they still in the box they where shipped in?

I see papers accumulated during my work years.  They are here because each day, each year I think, "some of that paperwork will be useful one day."  Really?   I see containers and containers and containers of 40 years of my parents paperwork that came into my custody.  I see the start and stop of wannabe hobbies.  I see cleaning supplies, laundry, and rain boots from that day it rained. When was that?

There is more.  I see the unofficial grave site of electronics and appliances.  I am the place where "As Seen on TV" items are delivered.  Yeah, I see those.

Company's coming.  I am making lateral shifts with the clutter, slowly realizing that all I have done is rearrange it neatly.  At least I can see more floor.  And the sofa is freed up.     

I think I should make an effort from now on to clean up today's messes today, not just clean up for company.  Is that the bell?

Budget? What?

A Penny Saved!

I know what it is to not have two nickels to rub together.  For a while, I had a difficult time making ends meet.  I had to literally count pennies to make a buck.  Some people throw pennies away, but one hundred pennies equals one dollar.  Add one hundred and fifty more pennies to make transit fare.  I had the pennies, they were everywhere: coat pockets, candy dishes, a piggy bank, purses, the dresser, the floor.  I scooped them up.  Tracked where they went and eliminated the wasteful and unnecessary spending; I discovered that I ate a lot of my money.

I got back on track and had accumulated a nice savings.  Well, savings meant spending and I enjoyed every bit of it.  Then I discovered that my savings stopped growing.  Whoa! It’s time to reevaluate, recalculate, and reverse the financial downward spiral.  But it is not so easy this time around.  I haven’t forgotten my pennies, but something is amiss.  I need another perspective.

Enter the TOTAL SPENDING FAST & SPENDING DIET SAVINGS.  I read this amazing blog by Anna Newell Jones who shares how she eliminated her debt.  I have listed my debts before, but her calendar gives me such inspiration that I feel confident with kicking the excessiveness to the curb.  And there is some obvious excess that needs to stop (BONUS!).  Budget is a new word to my vocabulary.  At least here, at this site, budgeting is made interesting and doable. 

Binge Watching, Again

I am thinking of sending Doris a message of hate.  I am currently binge watching the television show Parenthood thanks to her.  I binge watch television shows rather than watch currently running programs with the exception of TMZ.  I’ve just finished binging on Gilmore Girls and I decide, that is it for a while.  Then Doris tells me that, “You should watch Parenthood. It’s really good.”

I see the icon for Parenthood during my Netflix scrolls and after reading the synopsis decide, um, no.  But out of curiosity I try the first episode, which I do sometimes just to see if a program generates any interest for me like Sons of Anarchy or The Walking Dead, but sometimes I get hooked.  I had avoided Scandal because it just did not seem interesting – and then I watched season 1, episode 1, BINGED!  Some binges life interrupted and not resumed: Arrested Development, Raising Arizona.  And some, well, I just quit them: Deadwood, Madmen, Dexter, Weeds, and Breaking Bad, just saying.

Shows I’ve binged to completion: Doc Martin (2x) Royal Pains, Heartland, Longmire, The Glades (2x), The Witches of East End, Twisted, Rosemary and Thyme, Luther, 10 Items or Less, Army Wives (thanks niece), Kyle XY, Drop Dead Diva, Don’t Trust The B in Apartment 23, Shameless (UK), Rita (Danish), The 4400, Last Tango in Halifax, Hinterland, Land Girls, Wonderfalls, The Grand, Psyche, Monk, Ghost Whisperer, A Gifted Man, Cedar Cove, Leverage, Lilies, Orange is the New Black, Mistresses (UK), The Returned (French), McLeod’s Daughters (2x) and Curb Your Enthusiasm before I knew binge watching was binge watching.  And I am looking forward to Justified and new episodes of The Paradise, About A Boy, as well as a few others.  Oh, no, I’ve left out some Anime: Ghost Hunt, Mushi-shi, Nodame Cantabile, and Le Chevalier D'Eon (creepy).

Wow, how I wish I could remember them all. I do my nails, separate dirty laundry, fold clean laundry, sort through mail, read mail, write out cards, wrap gifts, reorganize my tote bags, purses, and among other things, rearrange my furniture, while I binge.

I wonder would I binge if I had cable.  But then commercial free enhances the binge experience that is only interrupted by my pause button. Is that why I binge?  Or is it because I can.

Well, now I think about Parenthood as I move my suitcase into my living room to pack for a trip while I binge.  Thank you Doris, it is a good show.  I hate you.

When All Else Fails

Even though I know that new tech devices are usually already outdated rolling off of the assembly line, I was so excited to be on top of the “next new thing” in technology, a tablet, generation one.  I open up the box to get started right away and what do I do? I lock myself out of my new device.  I call tech service immediately and they help solve my problem.  If only I had read more carefully and used a calm reserve rather than salivating like a puppy whose staring at his biscuit box.

Now I upgrade to a smart phone.  I could not hear a thing on the phone, not one sound the same day I leave with it from the store.  It is neighborhood store, thank goodness, and I walk back, thinking, “I did it again, I’m where technology comes to die.”  But it is the device, broken right out of the box, that time.   So the next time I do not hear my phone ring, I take it to the service center where I am informed that it is not broken, I have the mute button on.  If only I had read the manual I would have known about that feature.

I know that I am not a technophobe, but I am not tech savvy either.  I will learn, eventually, mostly by trial and error.  Blogging is the new challenge. I am clueless about developing a content calendar.  Who? What?  Why? 

This time, rather than muss it all up first, I do some searching on the web and stumble upon buffersocial.  After a couple of reads thoroughly, I am able to use Excel to create an acceptable calendar suitable to my needs. That is why when all else fails, follow instructions.  I just found the manual for my Magic Bullet (at least a one year shelf life). 

Now, about using understanding Excel…arrrgh!

My Autumn of Yesterday

     I almost picked up a leaf from the ground when it occurs to me: this is not an assignment. I am no longer in elementary school.

     I studied the leaf, large having three points with  varying colors of yellow, an imperceptible red and mostly brown.  It was the most color I have seen on a leaf in a long time.  The surrounding leaves that had fallen were just brown.  This was hardly the autumn of my youth that I remember.  At that time, the assignment was to find a leaf with had the turning colors of fall.  My problem then was which one?  There were so many from which to choose.  That was the autumn of yesterday, not today.

     Glancing out of my window I see that the trees are still bearing leaves of green.  They should have turned by now.  They should have fallen.  I should be able to kick up the leaves as I walk because they cover the ground.  But this is not the autumn of my yesterday; it is today.

     I like the autumn, the sweater weather.  It came with new clothes for the start of a new school year.  I remember the tartan skirt and the coordinating cable knit pullover; the new shoes; and the newly fallen leaves.  On my walk to school I kicked up a plethora of leaves. Then I stopped and picked up the best one, full of colors. And as usual, I took that beautiful fall leaf to school, from the autumn of my yesterday.
             

Random Thought

Every now and then while watching television I look around where I am sitting and I think, “I should rearrange my furniture.”  And this thought plays out little by little as I walk past or sit again in my living room watching television, reading a book, or reading the mail. 

In the mail there is a magazine.  In the magazine there is an advertisement for furniture.  I look at the way it is arranged, clip it out, hold it up against my vision of my living room and think, “Yes, this is the way it should be.”  I pin the clipping to my bulletin board.  As I sit, I eyeball my living room filling in the spaces with where I would move my furniture, and then resume reading my mail, reading a book, or watching television.

Every now and then I study that clipping making mental notes of the sofa and chairs and the accessory furniture that surrounds them.  Then I go to my living room and watch television, read a book, or read the mail.  There is a magazine.  It has an advertisement for furniture. I continue to study the clipping on my bulletin board.

I rearrange my furniture.  It looks nothing like the picture pinned on my bulletin board.   Five thousand dollars and three new pieces later, my living room arrangement still looks nothing like the one in the advertisement.

I search the worldwide web for pictures of living rooms in small spaces and nod at the ones I like.  I find a picture of a beautiful tiny mobile house that can be hitched to the back of a car.  I wondered if I moved out would it help, that is, to start from scratch.

Back in my living room I am remembering the tiny houses while watching television, reading a book, or reading the mail.  Then I think about rearranging the furniture.

The Shoes Hurt And The Bag Was Too Big

     It was the first time I had heard of Jimmy Choo and Birkin bag.  I was watching a fabulous television show new to the WB on analog channel 11, The Gilmore Girls.  The fast-talking, wisecracking, forever referencing classic television and movie genre mother and daughter character duo were shopaholics.  Sometimes there was just one shopping bag, but most of the time there were several.  I have always wanted to come home like that, with paper shopping bags overwhelming each hand.  Never have, but always wanted to.

     The Jimmy Choo shoes were Lorelai's (the mother) thing for which she had calculated her windfall of $70,000 would be roughly 250 pairs of Jimmy Choos.  Really?  Then Rory (the daughter)  receives a Birkin bag from her boyfriend which causes her grandmother to rave on and on about it.  Why? I wondered.

     I found the too-tight $300 Jimmy Choos and the tote-like $22,000 Birkin bag at Saks Fifth Avenue.

      Oh.