Goofy Sleeping Spots

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Jack doing his Garfield imitation.

He’s pretty good at it.

I have NEVER seen a cat sleep like that and he does all the time. I wonder if he can breath well enough! HAHA!

That’s okay… Maggie found him sleeping in our bathroom. Apparently he liked the towel on the top of the little cabinet! Nice perch!

What a goofy boy.

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Of course, Luna has her choice spots as well….

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De-Stuffing Update #2

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Okay, got rid of another big bag of clothes and stuff for Goodwill as well as about 15 books and odds and ends.

Don’t worry, they were books I read and well, they were okay. I’ll probably NEVER read them again. So that’s a good reason for them to go to someone that might really want to read and keep them!

Spent a good three or four hours working on my room. I was surprised at how much stuff I had stashed here and there.

Ended up with 2 large bags of trash as well! Felt mighty good.

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This is my little make-shift bookshelf… and I cleaned it out… so now one side has all my bluegrass songbooks and banjo music tab books and such and the other side is just a EMPTY box from Ikea… (which is waiting for the right collection of whatever…) and a couple photo scrapbook albums and a couple games. That’s it. I like it.

Really trying to get stuff gathered together, with it’s friends and family. All the batteries together, all the cords and cables for electronics, all my bluegrass stuff, ah, all my gardening stuff. It just makes sense to have things together, and to have a home. I will admit, it’s not always that way, but when it does come together like that, it’s magical. You find others respecting that “place” where that thing came from.

I know that if I went into a hospital emergency room and they had stuff ALL over the place, hither and yon and couldn’t find the tools they wanted because everyone just laid them where ever, I would freak out. Or say a dentist… or heck, even a grocery store or any place of business. You know… you walk into a car repair place and it’s just cluttered and disorganized and keys laying around and greasy parts and old calendars from three years past and just a mess… and you think twice.

How is that we tolerate that in our very own living spaces? Is it just a laziness? Or a lack of respect for our own dwelling space that we just start piles all over and have stuff placed around so willy nilly that it takes forever to accomplish anything because you are searching for that tool or the scissors or tape?

I’ve really been pushing “a place for everything and everything in it’s place” in my own life and my childrens. And it seems to be working. We rarely search for anything anymore. Not to say it never happens, but it’s rare. I know where most things are supposed to be and we try and respect that.

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You are looking at a dresser that now has THREE EMPTY DRAWERS!!!! Yeah, it’s true! Three I tell ya! THREE!!!

The top was a junk drawer and guess what? Just about all of it was, ah, junk. Yeah. Junk. Stupid things. Missing part things and I Don’t Know What The Heck It Is things… and just papers and receipts that were old or not useful. I had stashed a few bills and important papers in there for some dumb reason… because I HAVE a filing basket that all important papers are SUPPOSED to be gathered in… so I sorted through them quickly and then popped them in the basket. On my desk.

This one. The one with the adjustable Kitty paperweight.

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Once they get sorted and paid and have the proper receipts and whatever, they get sorted and put into 3 big binders I have… Family, Car and Stuff. (Stuff is for manuals or warranty info for gadgets, etc.)

Seems to work for us. We are pretty simple in the paperwork section ever since we lost the house and no one in the whole world would like to extend us credit or anything like that. Ha ha ha… it’s actually kind of good, in a rough life experience sort of way. Although I did get a credit card offer a week or so ago. Yeah, $300 limit… with $249 in fees, 27% interest and yearly fees of $169 and oh, yeah over the credit limit fees of $49 and so on and so on.

Ah, no thanks. My mamma didn’t raise a REALLY dumb person… just a previously foolish financially challenged person.

But yes, three empty drawers!

I also ditched my collection of “you’ll never attract your soul mate in those dreadful t-shirts and sweats” that I was somehow thinking they were desirable attire. I clung to the “they’re comfortable” thing, but to be honest, most were not. HA HA… they were like things I had used to paint in, and they were just dreadful. So they left. Thank goodness.

My kids are thankful. Heck the UPS guy is probably thankful as well. My goodness, no longer will I be tempted to sign for a box looking like a refugee from Cambodia or something. (Okay, no, worse than a refugee… yes… bad bad things!)

And yes, I finally broke down and ditched the trampy and yet frumpy 90’s lingerie that I got at some goofy party and wore like oh, a time or two and hated. That was uncomfortable and it’s gone. Including a handful of bras that were apparently purchased under the influeance of SOMETHING because they were painful and uncomfortable and hardly ever worn. Bye bye!!!

That felt good.

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I cleaned out my desk drawers, they were a little on the messy side… but mostly I organized all my odds and ends of computer, band, music and gardening stuff into some cool old boxes and tins that I had. That was cool.

And I went through our box of computer hardware misfits and junk.

How many USB printer cables should a family have?

We had 8. And we only have two printers. Not sure where they all came from, but they got whittled down. And the broken mice and a couple keyboards went away. And I had 6 of the T1 wired internet router cables. Now, mind you, all 6 computers in the house are wireless. And I don’t think they even make computers anymore that aren’t… So I ditched 4 and kept 2 just in case.

It’s just crazy how easily you gather up stuff like that! I think the duplication fairy visits often… or it’s more like that old place for everything, well, ain’t working and you can’t find something, so you go and buy it again. Not good.

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Well, I still have few places in my room to go… mostly these “hidden” boxes under my desk of scrapbooking and craft supplies… two little nightstands and my under the bed storage system… But those will have to wait for a few days.

My girls did their room as well, which I will admit, they keep pretty tidy. And we have the shed… shesh, that will be a bit of a nightmare though. But it needs to be done.

How’s everyone else doing? Anyone else de-stuffing like me?

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Meat Stash Restored…

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Well, I decided it was better to just stock up for the month and be done with it. I had the cash, and well, you never know how things might be later on, and I just hate to shop for the most part, so having this done for a good month or so is really appealing!

I managed to score a nice variety as well. And just for the heck of it, Maggie and I wrote down the poundage and what we predicted each bit would be in the way of meals…. we bought 55 pounds of meat. From chicken to pork, beef, a few steaks, some cheap stuff, hot dogs, and some bacon, that kind of thing. And we managed to get 12 different variations, so like it’s not ALL hamburger! And we paid $120 for it all… so that is a whopping $2.18 a pound. Which is not bad considering that there are 3 pork loin roasts and one beautiful ribeye steak that is over 1.5 pounds! (We’ll cook it for us three….) and 10 pounds of fancy marinated boneless chicken breast.

I actually did not get but 2 pounds of hamburger because we’re not really hamburger eaters! So it was all good stuff. And from our local butcher shop as well… and all individually wrapped in freezer paper and IDed and all that… in single use packages!

We figure it out to be about 45 meals. Most of the time we try to budget about 1/4 or 1/3 a pound of meat for a person. That seems to be plenty for the way we eat. We do a lot of cooking in pots, like chicken and noodles, or rice, or pot roasts, or like spaghetti or other noodle dishes to make meat go further. Every so often we might do a little more, like with little steaks or like a fancy Sunday meal, but we do try to stay around that a pound of meat for a dinner. Sometimes we’ll do a roast that is 2 or 3 pounds and that will be left overs or even another dinner the next day, perhaps in a different way.

We are not big meat eaters for lunch or breakfast… eggs, maybe, pancackes, hash browns… and lunch seems to be a lot of soups or ramen noodles, left-overs or like cheese sandwiches or mac and cheese. So I think this haul should provide about 45 meals. That means well into October. I’m going to really watch and see if that is true! A bit of a challenge! That would be super cool to stretch $120 for meat nearly two months! Not bad.

Speaking of leftovers…. I’ve been trying really hard to watch left-overs. I have given the dog way too many left overs that just got forgotten in the frig. Since we’re not big left-over people… I have been trying to make sure that the portions of food we make, match our people! And if I have just a little bit left, not hardly a full portion for someone, then the dog gets it right away. She’s happier and I am because not only can I save a little on her feed, I don’t have some nasty thing dying in my frig, and taking up valuable space and storage ware or foil or whatever.

Now if I say, double a recipe, and make enough for a real second meal? That works out fine! Don’t know why… so I’m really trying to watch that I don’t over do meals. Obviously we’re not skinny-minnies, and I suspect that we overeat at times just because it’s there. I would like to try and watch the portions a lot closer. If a while later someone is hungry, then some fruit or a slice of bread and some homemade jam can solve that. But I’ve noticed that we’re content.

And so is the dog.

HAHA…. she likes that spoonful or two of mashed potatoes or chicken and rice… she thinks she’s been elevated to a higher member of the pack now! She even eats that little bit of corn left from a can. Afterall, she doesn’t want us to think she’s snubbing our gracious offerings. And she’s less likely to get sick when she’s offered that same corn like a week later and it’s a little gamey!

(Trust me… Gypsy is a very pampered pooch and only gets the very best in good dog food. I learned a long time ago that garbage cheap food in a dog usually results in a less than healthy dog and a LOT of excess ah, stuff…. she’s always got good IAMs and Pedigree and lots of lamb and rice dishes, etc. I used to make her food!!! Honest! She is a very very pampered gal. But I don’t think that a bit of veggies and rice or left over meat etc is a bad thing for a dog. It’s a bonding thing for her. She loves being one of the pack! Of course, she draws the line on bananas. And most fruit really. Ha ha ha….)

Well, that’s my little bit of wisdom, trying to make sense of things and work a little more efficiently in this whole life thing! If I can stay out of stores, I’m a happy camper! I must be a little weird, I am not a shopper. I’m going to be super happy when internet grocery shopping comes to town… that would be SO COOL….

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