...then I probably don't need it today. At any rate, that is what I kept telling myself on Black Friday, and in fact during this whole weekend. In the end, I did do a tiny bit to stimulate the economy: I bought some dog biscuits at Dollar General, along with two boxes of flower fertilizer (on clearance at 10 cents each). I poured some of the fertilizer into the pots on the front porch that hold the 'mums, hoping they might still bloom one more time this season. The rest of the fertilizer I put in the barn to use on the blueberry bushes in spring.
I did poke around the internet for a good deal on a combination record player (yes, actual vinyl)/DVD/iPod docking station. This is something I've thought about to surprise my husband, who still has his record albums, but I didn't find an attractive one at a good price yet. I'll wait for retailers to get a little antsy and start cutting prices even more.
Nevertheless, even with feeling so conservative about purchasing things, our house is FULL of stuff. I'm trying not to get dragged down, trying just to clean one room at a time and convince my kids and husband to give some things away.
Then there is the small matter of my husband's habit of hiding things for safekeeping, but then sometimes he forgets where he hid them. It's like living with a chipmunk. Just today we found this year's school pictures tucked into a box that held a family portrait we haven't looked at in five years. Theoretically, it made sense... in practice, I was wondering where those school pictures were, since they cost a lot and I wanted to send copies to family BEFORE the boys leave for college.
I have a bad habit of keeping papers, books, vintage photos, and other things related to my writing and film projects. My husband, on the other hand, keeps... just about everything else. What can we say? We are children of Depression-era parents. I admit it: I reuse paper towels and bread bags. Never thought I'd be here, but the downhill slide was so effortless, between being a perpetually broke teacher/mom and trying to feel good about producing less trash.
We also have an incredible talent, in my family, for covering any floor with small sharp objects. Usually these objects are Legos, although occasionally there might be something else mixed in. In fact, we are so good at this that I have considered starting a home decor business, for clients who want a colorful floor. The only downside is the occasional twisted ankle. However, on the whole I have had to make peace with their Lego habit. It was either that or go crazy.
Building with Legos is actually pretty innocuous, even beneficial, when I compare it to some of the other 'hobbies' I have witnessed during my time as a teacher. At least my boys aren't tattooing themselves with sharpened paper clips and ball point pens!
Off to tackle folding the clean laundry mountain! I am really good at chores... the ones that involve turning a machine on, I mean.
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