Finally a Day to Myself

This laid off thing is starting to get on both of our nerves. Way too much togetherness! Keith is off to Shafter today to take another class, this one in forklift whatever, so I've got the house to myself for the day.

We went to El Torito for Christmas dinner, and I don't know what's happened to El Torito but it was one of the worst dinners we've ever had. First we got seated right next to a bunch of loud people drinking margarita after margarita while their children played on their new ipads or whatever electronic device they were. Not that there wasn't any place else to sit, there were not a lot of people in the place, maybe because they already knew that the food was bad. Of course if you are drinking margarita after margarita, maybe bad food doesn't matter. I ordered sour cream chicken enchiladas with rice and beans and the rice and beans tasted funny and then when I found dark meat chicken (ugh) in the enchiladas, that was it for me. Keith got some kind of tamale plate with one tamale that was so spicy he couldn't eat it. Very disappointing and very overpriced, and I don't think we'll ever be going to El Torito again even if they are one of the few restaurants open on Christmas. Sizzler would have been better, and yes, they are open on Christmas.

Anyway. Every year after the holidays I get a bug up my you know what to do my spring cleaning early. Way early. Something about the new year makes me want to get things cleaned out and washed and ready for whatever comes. So, my project has been washing down all of the walls and cleaning along baseboards and then when I'm all done with that I'll get the rug steamer out and clean our crappy carpets. Our carpets that look even crappier after going to our new neighbors house on New Years Day and seeing nice new carpeting in their house.

Our new neighbors seem so nice and normal after living next door to animal hoarders for so long. They are both about our age, with grown kids. They have two dogs who so far aren't left in the back yard to bark all day. They do an annual open house thing on New Years that they invited us to, where they serve sushi (ick) and tempura and other Japanese type stuff. I did like the tempura yams and green beans, but left the sushi (ick) to Keith. It was really nice of them to invite us, even if coming back home made me embarrassed about our crappy carpet after seeing theirs.

So, if Keith ever goes back to work and we get back on our feet, saving money for new carpet will be a priority.

I did get the front bedroom and bathrooms all sparkly, and yesterday spent the day in the kitchen, scrubbing all the cupboards and putting all the knick knacks in the sink to wash, and then rearranging a few things and getting rid of a few things that I was tired of looking at. It looks good even if right after I mopped the floor SOMEBODY came through with muddy boots on.

I did not take a picture of the other side of the kitchen where the trim is still unpainted and the doors for the laundry closet are still not put back on. I told Keith to find the paint and I will do the trim tomorrow. His New Year's resolution really needs to be to finish what he begins in a timely manner.

Resolutions?

Are you one of those people that does the whole soul searching where the heck did the year go and how come I didn't accomplish a single thing all year guess I'd better make some new year's resolutions and maybe even keep some of them next year kind of person?

No? Me neither. Well, maybe the soul searching where the heck did the year go part of it. And the how come I didn't accomplish a single thing all year part of it.

What is it about the new year that makes us all run around making resolutions to improve ourselves-resolutions that will last a week or two and then we'll revert to our slovenly ways and then feel extra bad about ourselves because we can't keep a few resolutions? The whole fresh start, brand new year full of possibilities thing? Clean slate and all that? A spring clean of our bad habits? Peer pressure from all around us to at least pretend to join in with our fellow resolution makers and find something (preferably easy) to resolve to change about ourselves or our lives in this brand spanking new year?

Aren't there some studies about how depression rates go up a few weeks after the new year when everybody breaks their new year's resolutions? Are resolutions really a good idea in terms of our mental health?

Open up a newspaper on new year's day and every store ad will be full of specials on slim fast, diet pills, exercise equipment, and workout clothes. Get fit and lose weight in the new year! So, we'll all run out and help the economy a little by buying treadmills and stair steppers and workout clothes, only to find that in a few weeks the treadmill is just taking up space in your bedroom and has become an extra clothes rack (great place to store the workout clothes that got worn once). Happens every year.

So, join with me in NOT making resolutions that you can't or don't want to keep. Just make a few small ones that are easy to do, don't take a lot of time, and won't make you feel like a total failure who doesn't deserve to walk this earth because you can't keep that resolution.

Here are mine:

Eat an apple every day.
Spend more time petting the cats and giving each one some daily special attention time.
Keep a ledger book of our expenses, complete with attaching important receipts and warranties to the appropriate expense page, so that next December I'm not sitting here wondering what the heck we did with all our money all year.
Do a quick once over cleaning of the bathroom each morning. Okay, this one is setting myself up for failure, but I'll try anyway.

And that's all the resolutions I'm going to make. Oh, and take a walk most days-notice I didn't say every day here. There are some days in the summertime when you are advised not to leave the house because the air pollution is so bad here. Hey, maybe a treadmill would come in handy after all!