Random thoughts

Thursday I had a long list of things that needed to be done in my house. After watching the weather though I decided they all could wait. The temperature was supposed to drop dramatically from the 65 degrees we were enjoying down into the single digits and stay there for several days. I packed a picnic lunch for Curly Top to haul in the back of her pickup, Huggy bear rode shotgun and I ran to keep up. We headed for the playground. No, my room didn't get cleaned, the dusting wasn't done, and I just started working on my curtains yesterday, but we had so much fun. It really has been to cold for us to spend much time outside at all since then, so that was time well spent. I also needed to do a little work at the office that day, so less than an hour after we returned home we decided to walk up there. It is only a few blocks away, but by the time we got there I regretted not driving. The temperature had already dropped and the wind was picking up. When we left the office to head home Huggy bear wanted down to walk. Right away she tripped and fell into mud puddle. She looked so pathetic on her hands and knees in the puddle crying. Her clothes were soaked so I carried her home wrapped in my coat. The walk seemed much longer than it usually does.

Here I have been talking about recycling and not running out and buying everything new, but really I have been bordering hypocrisy. For some reason living room curtains have been some kind of major decision for me. We have lived here for years and I have not been able to commit to any curtains long enough to buy them. I mentioned that I went shopping last month and bought material for them. I had the money in my hands to buy a set I liked, but just could not justify spending that much money on them. So I bought material, that I really do love. It has sat and waited for me to decided exactly what I wanted to do with it. Yesterday I finally started making them, but mentioned I was in no hurry because I hadn't bought rods yet. I had pulled a couple of dowels out of my closet that had been there for so long that I can't remember exactly what they used to be used for. I figured they would work temporarily. I didn't have any hardware to hang the rods from though so I still would have to wait for a trip to the store before I could hang them. Dh asked me why I didn't just use the brackets I already had up there. Well, for one reason two of them had been relocated to a bedroom. The other reason was just that I had my mind so set on buying this stuff I hadn't considered using what I had. I looked at the brackets that were hooked to the wall. When we first moved in I made some temporary curtains that I really didn't like. These were the brackets I had made for them, which I did like at the time. The curtains had been took down to clean years ago and I never did put them back up. The brackets I had made out of rings from canning jars With bits of extra fabric hot glued on them, and they didn't look bad. They just weren't what I had planned to buy. I had pictured dark wood rods hanging on dark wood brackets. The finished project would look more elegant than homey. Then I shook myself and laughed. Here I had everything I needed to hang the curtains today, without spending another dime, and I was trying to find reasons to shop. It only took me five minutes to make two more brackets and the final cost was twenty dollars a window. The sacrifice of a little elegance was well worth it. Had I gone the other route and purchased the curtains and hardware it would have cost me over a hundred dollars a window.

Friday was grocery shopping day. I left my house at around 9:30 a.m. and did my shopping. Dh and I ate lunch before I dropped him off at the truck repair place. (I know there is a word for that place, but it has slipped my mind, which seems to be sieve shaped) I did a bit more shopping. (really I was exchanging a Christmas gift that I broke, but didn't feel bad returning it because it came without an instruction manual, I think it had already been returned once, and in the coarse of learning how to use it the motor quit.) I was still forty minutes away from home when I remembered that I didn't turn off the fire under the tea kettle this morning. I called Dh, he was only a couple of miles ahead of me so that didn't help much. I called my sister, Miss universe, I really didn't want to call her because she had Huggy Bear and Curly Top and I didn't want her to get them out in the cold. It was nine degrees outside with a wind chill of -5. She did get them out though. No damage was done except for the kettle which had went from white to brown, and now my family gets to make jokes about me not being able to use the stove when nobody else is home to supervise me.

On that same drive home I realized I felt very tired. I had been getting plenty of sleep, so that wasn't why. It felt more like an emotional tired than a physical tired anyway. What I needed was a night of laying around in my room drinking tea and watching a movie. I decided to do that very thing that night. Not fifteen minutes after I was back in town a friend invited me over for her grand kids birthday party. Well I couldn't very well say no with the girls behind cheering about a party, so my plans changed. A half an hour before the party my friend called and said her grand kids weren't coming because of the weather. There were still people coming over though so we were still invited over to hang out. I agreed that we would still go, but warned the girls that we weren't staying for very long. It soon became apparent that I had misdiagnosed myself. I wasn't suffering from to much company, but not enough. I just haven't really had time to hang out with Friends and laugh much lately. We stayed until almost midnight when the girls decided they were ready for bed and begged to be brought home. I had so much energy the next day after work I invited that same friend over and my sister and her family over to play cards. I put on a large pot of gumbo and we ate, laughed, and played all afternoon. That night the girls and I climbed into my bed and watched Chronicles of Narnia while drinking tea. Life is a balance of blessed solitude and cheerful noise when those get out of balance the mood suffers.