The Good Wife

I am absolutely hooked on The Good Wife. What a great show! The characters are multi-dimensional and the situations are real. (I do however have a problem with how thin and perfectly coiffed everyone always is though.) Each episode leaves you wanting to find out what happens next.

Spring Decorating

Now that the house is paid off, the decorating that has been on hold can commence. New blinds and draperies are in the works. I'm like the birds that are busily making there spring nests. There are so many things that I want to do. This weekend we are going to Home Depot for ceiling fans for 2 of the bedrooms and look at blinds for the dining and front rooms. Draperies are a little trickier--I even considered making them but am very hesitant knowing how long it takes me to get projects finished. I may end up making them once I see the cost of custom drapes though. There's paint and wallpaper projects for the kitchen and laundry room and I'd like to tile the laundry room--putting utility carpeting in the laundry room was not a good idea. Then there is furniture for the front room and a desk for the guest room. I've been patiently waiting (well maybe not so patient but waiting anyway) and now I am getting to make things pretty.

The Possum in the Potty

I get home from working the evening shift around midnight. I usually let one of more of our 3 cats in or out and then go to the back to change clothes, brush my teeth, and go to bed. One of the cats will lead the way from the kitchen, down the hall and to the bathroom. On this particular night, as we were heading down the hall when Misty came to the bathroom, she looked in and came to a full stop then abruptly did a U-turn and came back toward me. Something was in the bathroom. Having one mighty hunter cat in the family leads one to be cautious in entering a room where the catch of the day might have been brought in—small snakes, birds, frogs, all have been brought inside in the past for proper admiration. Cautiously I peeked around the corner and there was a wide-eyed plump possum looking calmly back at me. She wasn't frightened, more like curious, as if to say “Well, look who else has come in from the cold; Isn't it nice and warm in here?” Oh dear, how does one get a possum out of one's bathroom?? So off I go to get JMM to figure it out. His solution was to open both front and back doors (and let in the very cold wind that was blowing which was probably why the possum wanted to come in side to begin with). He then got the broom and ushered her toward the open back door. She felt the cold wind blowing and decided that the laundry room would be much nicer and off she ambled to the laundry room which he had not remembered to close off. Behind the washer seemed like a nice cozy place for a plump possum to settle in but JMM used the broom to usher her out and into the dining room where she could go out the front door. Nope, too cold out that door also. So back we go to the kitchen. Now you might be wondering where the cats were in all this. They were every last one of them sitting on the island in the kitchen watching the people following the possum round and round. I could see what they were thinking: “What fun!! It isn't usually this lively when she comes home from work!!” After a couple of trips round the kitchen, through the dining room, and back again, I was able to block the exit from the dining room and Madam Possum went out the front door into the cold. She never seemed particularly frightened so I think she was the possum that lived in our tomato jungle last summer so that she was used to us. She obviously wanted a warm place and maybe thought there might be fresh tomatoes inside. Finally we were able to close the doors and head off to bed. I do hope Madam found a warm place out of the wind too.
In case you are wondering how she got inside in the first place, JMM confessed that he had left the back door open after dark while he went upstairs to work on his stamp collection.

Managing Paper

Remember when it was touted that computers would make us a paperless society? Ha! I don't know about you but around my place of work and at my home, keeping ourselves dug out from under the influx of paper is a never-ending task. Here are a few of the things I do to manage the paper flow.

1. Don't put the mail down--sort it directly into where it needs to go. Most of it will go directly to the recycling bag, some directly to files, and a very few to my desk to be acted upon. The thing with paper is that it grows while you sleep--you go about your business for a few days and what was a 2 inch pile has now overrun your desk, your counter tops, and every flat surface in your house.

2. Have a filing cabinet or drawer with labeled hanging folders. (No, you are not allowed to pile papers into the drawer and close the drawer. They will multiply there until you can't get the drawer open.) I have red folders for Income Tax (blood red...), yellow for insurance folders, 12 blue monthly folders, moss green folders for warranties, and bright green folders for Social Security, voter registration, employment benefits, etc.

3. The files must be cleaned out periodically. This is what I have been doing today--cleaning out my files and wondering where on earth all this paper came from. There is a fine line in determining what to keep and what to put through the shredder. I keep this year plus the previous 9 years Income Tax; if the IRS wants more than that, they'll just have to send me to prison. I keep the papers in my monthly folder for a year. Health papers are a puzzle though; what if I have to list all my doctor, dentist, and optometrist visits in my last 25 years or be denied insurance coverage? I have no idea if I went to the dermatologist in 1997. Anyway, since I have current insurance, I just keep the previous year and figure that if I ever needed to purchase insurance, they would find one way or another to either turn me down to begin with or just take my premiums and not pay my claims.

What are your best ideas for taming the paper monster??

Thought for the day:
For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service. John Burroughs

My Inheritance

My parents were never wealthy. In fact, they were in dire poverty during the years of the Great Depression; I have never experienced anything near the desperation that they lived through during those years. Through their own hard work and values they were able to give me a middle class childhood and youth, a college education, and a priceless inheritance. My inheritance included:
1. A love of reading and learning
2. The knowledge of how to live a good life by making the best of what you have. Cooking, sewing, gardening
3. A spirit of perseverance and a work ethic
4. An example of debt free living
5. A spirit of independence, taking care of my family, not being dependent on others

As I get older, how I have come to appreciate my parents and the inheritance they gave me.

The Olympics

It seems like a waste of time and money to me. But then I've never been any good at sports and not interested in watching them either. I don't understand why someone would spend years and years of their lives on an activity that 3 people in the entire world every four years get a medal for. The rest of the competitors get nada; OK maybe they get to teach skiing or skating to a bunch of snotty kids for a living but really all that time and effort and money to teach at the local ice rink?? Then there are the injuries not just the injuries during the Olympics which are widely publicized but all the life altering injuries that don't get publicized in the years of training. Finally, I don't really admire people who are so totally focused on themselves which I suppose you would have to be to beat out everyone else in the world every fourth year. Not my cup of tea. Just my opinion, everyone else seems glued to their televisions.

The Quilt Saga

Well, the world's slowest quilter has finished quilting the much modified Amish Cross quilt that was begun about a year ago. I have sworn off small piece patterns forever after this one. I need to trim and bind the edges and when I do I promise that I will take a picture of it and learn how to post it to the blog. I have had so much trouble with this quilt that while I am pretty pleased with it, my main feeling is one of relief. As always, there are several new quilts percolating in my mind but my next project will be to re-bind my Irish Chain quilt--the edges are quite frayed. Then there are the placemats and napkins that I bought fabric for last fall--no one need know that they were supposed to be for last fall instead of next autumn...

Thought for the day:
Old quilters never die, they just go to pieces.