Much Angst About Nothing

Gainesville

Bill went back to work today after the long holiday vacation. He quickly discovered his ankle was not properly healed yet, once he had on his big-boy shoes and tried climbing steps. He's a bit gimpy again tonight as a result. The cat is doing her best to keep him resting it properly.

It rained all night New Year's Eve, thunderstorms, etc. Very glad we did not have to go out. After a muggy day yesterday, it finally turned cold again today-- back into the 50's, and cold tonight. Such crazy weather.

This morning I had to face up to all the stuff I'd been putting off while in the cooking frenzy, and general holiday miasma. As I slowly regained consciousness, I kept remembering more and more things, until I started screaming out loud -- the Cathy AACCK! kind of screams. I stopped and listened to my inner FlyLady. She said, just calm down. Take a few deep breaths. Now write down all the things that just have to be done. Then pick one, set the timer, and work on it for 15 minutes. Then pick another, etc. Take a break every hour. I did that, and it was amazing how much I was able to get done, and I got calmer and calmer as I went along.

Made real progress on getting those blankitty-blank blank cards done. Finally decided I could live with the star done with a thin silver pen-- the only shiny thing I had left that reliably works. They look fine-- it's just not what I wanted, and what I got about with about 8 of them. Now I'm working on getting the full pages cut into the right size to glue into the cards. If nothing goes terribly wrong (against all odds, given what's happened so far), I should have them done by the end of the week.

Getting back on track with the weekly Blessings proved easier than expected. While it seemed like forever since I'd done them, I'd actually only missed a week. Got more Christmas garbage removed from the big room. The entrance area is now clogged with boxes, so that is on tap for tomorrow.

Also on tap for tomorrow: a routine dentist appointment. They called today to say they'd moved their office even further away. Well, of course. Getting there on time will dominate the morning.

Got a strategic fridge decluttering done. Made a simple schnitzel with already very thin pork chops, and discovered the secret to keeping the crust on: the huge teflon-coated electric skillet. Had leftover green beans, white gazpacho, and the rest of the shrimp. We were all three pleased with this meal.

Mom, your night-owl schedule was clearly forced by the hours of the job you had. It seems to me that your natural proclivity is to get up with the chickens, as Pa did. At least, that was what you were doing when you were my age-- while writing the Jottings we are now reading. You were getting up before 6:00 AM to do housework, for no other reason than you WANTED to. I got up at the ungodly hour of... 9:30! this morning because I felt I had to. Yesterday I slept til noon, and only got up because I knew I had a whole lot of cooking to do.

Quite a busy day, indeed. What an angel Charlie is!

Let the record show I kept two out of three of my new years resolutions. Not bad. If I could remember what the third one was, I might have kept it too.