Mid-week stuff

It's the first Wednesday of the new year.  I haven't listed my resolutions yet.  Pretty much it's going to be the same ones as last year, only this year I will try to remember all of them!

1. I will still be shooting for $20,000 in my savings acct.
2. I will make all my Christmas gifts and I WILL start much earlier this year.
3. I will take charge of my health and doing what I can to get this arthritis thing under control.
4. I will increase my activities of lightening my global footprint. Which is at 3.5 right now.  I can't believe it is so high!  Most all of that is due to living in a hot climate and having to use a/c all the time and what isn't attributed to that, goes to driving a car.  I just do not live in the right place.

I didn't do the obits last week or this past Sunday either.  So I will just give you the highlights of this week:

"Maria Elena found peace with the Lord on Dec. 24"

"In memory of our late father, Pledger Bracket, please help save minds by donating to the Alzheimer's Assoc."

"Katheryn Gaynelle age 89, fell asleep in death due to complications of Alzheimer's disease".

"Howard E. (Bubba), age 67, passed away"

One guy "passed into God's hands" while another man "slipped into the Lord's hands".

But my favorite was this:

"George Eugene lived joyfully with his beloved wife of 67 years."

Living joyfully with your beloved sounds like just the kind of legacy I would like to leave behind.

 . . . . . . . .  and without further ado . . . . . . . . . . .

The very first winner of a free bag of tea is . . . . . .

Sarah!

Sarah with an H, as opposed to other Sara's without H's, please shoot me an email with a mailing address and I will send you a lovely bag of tea.

Next month we will do the same thing.  So make sure you are here during the first week of the month if you want to get in on this excitement.  'Cause what is more exciting than free stuff?!!

On to other news, did any of you watch the first episode of the new season of Biggest Loser last night? I did not understand this at all.  But if I were Bob or Jillian I would be dusting off my resume'.  This does not bode well for either of them.  Yes, I have seen the gossip reports that Jillian will be leaving after this season.  But Bob?  What about Bob?  And still after the 2 hour long opener we have not seen the faces or names of the "Unknowns" as they are calling the new trainers.  Very strange.

Have a great day!

And Sarah, let me hear from you.

Follow up

Believe it or don't but I have already emptied my shelves of over 60 cookbooks.  Half are going to the used book store for credit and half are going to my brother the Chef.

One New Year's Resolution down and $20,000 more to go!

New Year's Resolutions or Goals

I am considering this my first entry for the new year. So I will take this opportunity to put down in print what my goals or resolutions are for the coming 12 months. And of course I will do as that totally superfluous Samantha Harris always says "in no particular order".

1. My savings account will increase by $20,000. I don't know how do-able this really is, but I am using Sluggy as my motivator. She shot for 60K last year and landed in the 20's, which I think is great work. Now last year I moaned and ranted and bitched about how every time I save $250 for example, I then get a bill for $250, so I am REALLY hoping this is not going to be the case with my $20,000 goal. Please wish me luck and cross something for me.

2. Continue on my Compact goals of lightening my footprint on the Mother Earth. I am going to step up all of my activities to another level and see how that goes. You know the drill, less packaging in the house, less things in the garbage, more in the compost, more things gone to Goodwill, less things brought in to the house in the first place.

3. Get started WAAAAAAYY earlier on Christmas and birthday gifts. I did not allow near enough time this year and Harry and David came to the rescue for several gifts. Not good planning on my part. I think lots of gifts this year will be through Heifer and Kiva. But the homemade gifts will be started on in April, I think.

4. Start walking and find a way to get in much better health and better shape this year. 2 of my high school friends dropped dead this year unexpectedly and I am not only deeply saddened by this, but shocked that 50 year old people who should be in their prime are not. I would really like to be around for a little longer. I have more to accomplish, more to see, and I am not even remotely ready to kick said bucket.

5. Toward the end of better health, I will be doing more of my meal planning and shopping through Greenling our local online green grocer and at the farmers markets. Keeping it local and organic can only be good for all of us.

6. Remove 1 full shelf of cookbooks from my collection. There are plenty of them that I have never used. There are plenty more that I only have made 1 single item from. These books need to be set free.

I think that's where I will leave this. Six is plenty. Six is also a nice even number and it is half a dozen. Six is good.

As always, feel free to post some of your goals and comment on mine. I always learn something!

Out with the old, in with the new

This was my first year of blogging. I have no clue how I would be graded if there were grades being given. That wasn't really my intention behind this little venture. I wanted to put something down in black and white (and pink) to hold me accountable to my goals.

One of my big goals this year was my Tea Hoarding Challenge. And I would just love to stick some photos up of my now depleted tea shelves so you can all see the progress I made. But since I have this new fancy-schmancy computer I have no clue how to do this. One day I will sit down here and learn all about it and do just that, but for now let us all imagine how depleted my tea shelves have become.

They seriously are way down from a year ago. And because I was such a good girl all year long with not buying teas and using up old stock, Santa brought me two tins of new teas. Awwwwww! I also have a bunch of old used tea tins to be covered in some pretty paper and re-labeled for when I break open those vacuum-packed space-aged mylar-looking teas that I STILL HAVE NOT OPENED. It has been more than a freaking year! I know these teas were in there at the end of 2008 because I bought them when that cute little teapot store went under, and I stayed true to my word and did not purchase any new teas for me in 2009.

So, my plan for tomorrow is to re-organize the tea shelves and then cover, label and repurpose the old tins and fill them with the currently sealed teas and use them up. Enough with the teas already.

Another area of my life I will be looking at this year is my bookshelves and my closet. Now, I go through my closet every few months and toss things into a big box. When that box if full it is off to Goodwill. But I am talking about being brutal. If I haven't worn something in a really long time, I don't care how cute it is, it needs to go be cute in someone else's closet. Gone!

Same thing with the cookbooks. I do go through my other books every time I go to my aunt's house or my mom's and take them books. I like sharing and I like weeding them out. But I haven't thought of doing that with my cookbooks. How many frigging cookbooks does one woman need? This might be tough. I do love me some cookbooks. But I guarantee there are some on my shelves that I have never made one. single. thing. out. of. Not one. I am sure that I can back up that statement. So, I will be going through these and seeing what needs to happen to them. Maybe they need to be gifted to someone with less (or no) cookbooks? Maybe I need to be taking them to Half Price Books for some credit?

I wonder if I can get rid of a whole shelf's worth of cookbooks?

Which brings me to my next thought. What else should I be organizing and getting rid of? What things are not bringing beauty and joy to my life? What things are causing me more work as in dusting, polishing, etc.? A smart ass person might say something about dogs, cats, kids, husbands, but no, those things definitely bring beauty, joy, and loads of happiness along with their messes.

I am paring down, people! Paring down!

I have been thinking about those wish boards that people make. You know, the ones where you put pictures of things you want, things you see yourself doing, achieving or accomplishing. I don't recall what they are called. But anyhoo, that is not the point. The point is I have a board that would be perfect for that and think I might get busy doing one of those this year. If and when I do, I will be sure to photograph it and tell you about it and then see at the end of the year how many of them really do come to fruition.

2009, I will miss you. It was overall a pretty good year here in my house. I am thankful for the blessings and hopeful for the future.

2010, Welcome! High hopes for the coming year. Let's start with getting some good health care bills out of congress. Affordable health care for all in 2010!