I will be back soon.  Thanks for hanging in there with me while I stress and fret.

There’s something about that grey slush that just sends me over the edge.  The inability to control my environment, the irritation of stepping into a cold puddle in my stocking-feet? Either way, I hate it.

I’m sick of eating casseroles, soups and leftovers.  I’m sick of ground beef.  I’m sick of waking up in the morning in a dark house, with bare trees outside the windows.  I’m sick of the white residue of salt water crusting the car from the water thrown by other drivers’ tires on melting city streets.

Staticky hair from wearing a hat.  Chapped fingertips, chapped lips, dry skin.  Cracked heels catching on socks, cold drafts next to the door, my  engagement ring turning to the side inside my winter gloves, my eyes watering in the cold, my glasses fogging when I come inside.

My daughter is having growing pains and in the evenings after school, every day this week, she has whimpered while rubbing her thigh, unable to concentrate on homework.  The nurse line at the doctor’s office has cut me off mid-recording each time I’ve tried to leave a message.  It took three tries to ask them to call and let me know if we need to bring her in for an exam.

A thousand things are on the list of what I could complain about, but really what it boils down to is restlessness, the feeling I get every year between the new year and the start of spring.  I’m unable to focus, I can’t take on new DIY projects or crafts, and I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep.

So instead, I’m going to take a hot shower.  I’m going to start a loaf of bread and get ready for a client meeting this afternoon.  I’ll make supper for my family and after PC gets home and we eat, Rabbit and I will sit down and watch “American Idol.”

Spring will be here before long, but it can’t come soon enough for me.

Instead of learning more, I’ve spent the past week knitting dish cloths.  The same pattern, with crooked edges, which I found a fix for today online.  This is a sample of the second or third one I did (before addressing the uneven edges):

So far I’ve completed SIX of these puppies, using cotton yarn. The sixth one I finished this evening, and it turned out so much better, but I didn’t take a picture because I had already put the dishcloth in the closet with the others.

The nice thing about knitting is that I can be in the same room with the TV going and my husband and/or daughter watching TV, and I can be with them without being glued to the tube.

The bad thing is it is seriously cutting into my reading time, and my fingertips are a little sore.

I received the knitting needles and four skeins of cotton yarn from a dear friend, along with a pattern for the dish cloths.  I had to learn to knit first, which I did by watching videos on YouTube.

I was so frustrated trying to learn, but now that I can do some basics, it is such a zen sort of activity.  I feel good knowing that I can make some things to stockpile for gifts throughout the year so there isn’t such a mad scramble next Christmas.

Sitting on the sofa in the very early morning with my coffee on a table nearby, knitting in silence while the cats sleep on the floor beside me…it’s wonderful.  Knitting in my easy chair while my daughter watches cartoons and pauses the TV to tell me stories and jokes is also a wonderful thing.  Hearing her say to me “Mommy, you’re doing a good job!” is priceless.

That’s right.  It’s time to clean my home office again.

This room has become the house’s junk drawer. The clearinghouse of miscellaneous crap we need or think we need or just have no other place for.

This year, my goal for the room is to take out the glass topped computer desk and move it downstairs for my husband’s computer. I want to find two nice sturdy wooden sawhorses and paint them white and use them for the base of the desk I am going to make out of the old door from my parents’ house.  I thought about using file cabinets for the base, but the very idea of that was so disheartening I couldn’t think straight.

I need to empty out the closet, which is packed to the gills with boxes of old files and documents and school papers and youth retreat souvenirs and old clothes and books and an old dresser (for real) and God only knows what else.

I would love to take the closet doors off and make the closet into a work nook for my sewing machine or my drawing table and supplies.

The office organization system I put together from itso brand storage stuff I got at Target a couple of years ago has been turned on its head after I took half of the system out of the office and put it in the kitchen to organize our things by the back door.  So I would like to get that back into the office by getting something else in the kitchen.

I will have pictures of some of this stuff eventually but honestly, the office is such a train wreck right now that I don’t have the stomach for it.  For now, here is a quick diagram of the room:

(Sorry, I just drew it and snapped a picture with my phone).

The window situation is that we have those 1950s ranch high privacy windows; they are about five feet from the floor, so I can put things below them and get lots of light in the room.  As you walk in the door, to the right is the only full wall in the room.  That’s where I have the big postal sorting cabinet I got on Craigslist last fall.

My desk is currently in the middle of the west wall, below the window, but that means I have my back to the door while I’m working, and I’m not a fan of that.  The drawing table is in the corner by the closet.  There is stuff EVERYWHERE.

If I make the desk out of a door, it’s going to be huge.  I’ll put tempered glass on top of it and it will be standard height, but that sucker is going to be enormous.  I’m thinking that if I put it on the big wall by the door, I could put some filing stuff to the left of it, in the northwest corner of the office.  Then I could move the postal cabinet to the west wall.

Any feng shui suggestions? Any regular suggestions? I’m not looking to spend a bunch of money and I don’t think I’m going to paint the room, even though it is aqua with a deep purple ceiling.

I am once again having difficulty with the piles of papers, receipts, letters, mail, bills, postcards….just piling up.  I have to start being merciless with this stuff.  So enough about that.

Yesterday, PC’s parents stopped in and spent a few hours with us on their way through town. They’d been in a nearby town picking up some furniture for PC’s mom, who is moving into her own place in a town not far from here.

PC’s folks have been divorced for more than 20 years and are currently both staying with PC’s brother and his wife.  My mother in law, Judy, just retired and moved from her community across the state to be closer to us all.  She’s only going to be an hour and a half away and we’re pretty excited.  It’s nice that PC’s parents get along so well and for Rabbit to have an afternoon with both Grandpa Bob and Grandma Judy was such a treat.

While talking to PC’s mom, we were talking about friends and family members who are going through some terrible struggles:  cancer, deaths in their family, sickness, marital troubles…

I started thinking that other than our current financial straits (which are only temporary), our life is pretty great.  I have a husband I love, and who loves me.  We laugh together and get along (most of the time) very well.  Our daughter is a delight.  We have a modest but comfortable home.  Our families are a great support and we have amazing friends.  We live in a city we love, PC is working full time, we have health insurance and my hall closet is organized.

Plus, I made two loaves of gorgeous potato bread this evening.  I’ve knitted three dish cloths after only learning to knit in the last week.  We have groceries, the laundry is all done and we have a down comforter, two great cats and lots of books to read.

To complain about any of this would be blasphemy, at least tonight.

Now let’s establish something here.  If you have ever been to my house you will know I’m not a clean freak.  The sorry state of my windows, the leaves gathered in the car port, the piles of paper everywhere in my office, and the fine layer of dust on most of the furniture (until recently) show that I’m human, and slightly grubby.

But recently, I decided to keep my kitchen clean and organized, and to keep the dishes washed.  I also did a little relocating of kitchen items to make things simpler.

The first thing I did was clean out my refrigerator.  How frugal is it to have such a messy and disorganized fridge that you keep buying Ranch dressing because you can’t find the last bottle you bought?  And now you have four bottles of it.   Or jam.  Or Miracle Whip.

How frugal is it to buy a bunch of one thing because it is on sale and then it goes bad before you can use it because you bought too much (cheese, fresh produce, bread).

If you keep things simple in the kitchen (fridge and pantry) you will be more likely to know before you go to the store what you need, what you already have, and what you can make for dinner.

So anyway, back to the kitchen reorganization and the fridge.  I cleaned that sucker out and threw away SO MUCH FOOD.  I read somewhere that American’s throw out, on average, 40% of the food they buy.  I was sick just reading that.  But I see how it can happen.

In the fridge (and I do not have before photos because it was so gross) I found, way in the back, in a Tupperware container, leftover rice with pink mold growing on it.  I found a container of sad, sad cottage cheese that looked like a science experiment.  I found leftover soup, leftover meat, leftover mashed potatoes.

Sick and wrong.  While throwing these things away, I realized what they had in common:  they were all in Tupperware containers.  I couldn’t see inside the containers and out of sight = out of mind.

So my wish list for now is a set of clear glass pyrex containers with airtight plastic lids that I can use to store leftovers and other foods in the fridge where I can see at a glance what is inside them, reducing waste.   I love Tupperware in a sentimental way, but using them for leftovers is causing a lot of food waste.

When I finished cleaning out and organizing the fridge, it looked like this (and don’t worry – I’m going for groceries tomorrow):

At the top, we have our Fage yogurt (Greek yogurt that I LOVE), applesauce, tub margarine (it’s stick margarine that I whip with the mixer and add a little olive oil to for spreading), Rabbit’s cottage cheese (she loves it) and margarine for baking.

Below that on the left is the “snack” drawer, which is actually full of cheese.  We love cheese and it’s a great meal stretcher, snack, and generally fabulous in all ways.  That top shelf used to be lower and we lost a whole set of storage which is now open below the cheese drawer.  Instead of putting the milk on the top shelf when it was lower, we now have it in the middle, along with the omnipresent pitcher of tap water staying cold, and a carton of orange juice, and a couple of cans of PC’s soda.

The bottom shelf is reserved for eggs, some leftovers (in containers with plastic wrap on top or clear plastic lids!) and my new helpful thing:  a plastic bin where I can put defrosting meat so if something drips, it stays in the container and not all over the shelf (which is what happened last week).

The veg drawer is clean and lined at the bottom with a paper towel  and always has carrots and celery in it.  Contrary to popular belief, regardless of what some people on Pinterest do, you are not supposed to store onions or potatoes in the refrigerator.  Or bread.  Did you know that?  Bread goes stale faster in the refrigerator.  Look it up.  It’s true.

By the way, you are also not supposed to store your milk or eggs in the door of the fridge, because they don’t stay as cold there.  You’re welcome.

Moving on:  Here is the fridge door.  (You can skip this if it’s boring, which it very well might be):

We are the king and queen of condiments: this is our pared down collection.  At the bottom are all those bottles of salad dressing and two jars of Miracle Whip.  Also, my jar of yeast for bread.

Above that, more crap.  Capers, mustard, olives, jam, pickles, salsa, horseradish, more mustard, tahini, relish.  And a bottle of white wine used exclusively for cooking and I know it’s supposed to be on its side but I don’t drink it so lay off me.

The butter section has butter in it.  Also?  Papers from butter and margarine wrappings that I save to use for greasing my bread pans. I told you I was a tightwad.

Next to that is ketchup, vinegar, worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, etc.

The excitement must be killing you.  So let’s move on to the pantry.

I was pretty excited to clean and reorganize the pantry, because there wasn’t going to be any food waste.  I keep that stuff pretty regimented.  What I was struggling with was fitting everything in the way I wanted it to, especially spices.

I got the spice section figured out by moving some non-spice items to a different part of the cupboard and moving the coffee stuff out of there completely.

I know, every day I think how lucky I am to have this built into the door of this cabinet.  Below is the inside of the cabinet on that side:

What I did differently is put the oils and vinegars inside a bin, and the same with the other basket, which holds syrups and honey.  I kept finding drips and spills in the cupboard and it was driving me batty.  I like this method better.  Random stuff in the middle (including a Tupperware container of homemade cookies) and spices above that.  On the top shelf, I have a basket where I collected all our tea bags and packets of cocoa mix, as well as some jars of bulk spices like bay leaves and black pepper, and a couple of cute Tupperware shakers for flour dusting, cinnamon and sugar mixture, and the nutritional yeast I sprinkle on popcorn.  Don’t ask.

The side to the right of that is most changed:  I put the onions and garlic in one basket, and on the top shelf, the potatoes are in another. All of our envelopes of seasonings and a couple of sides, as well as envelopes of kool-aid, are in a little plastic bin.  I have pint jars of couscous and falafel mix, boxes of pasta, and a cannister of small pastas in bags.  Just a few canned goods: I find that if I buy too many, I end up in chaos and not using them up, or buying more because I can’t find that can of soup I was looking for.

The lower part of the pantry cupboard is not much changed, so let’s skip that.

Here’s the fun part:  I rearranged the kitchen counters/cupboards so that on the right side of the kitchen is now a “toast and coffee station.”  PC had his giant coffee maker on the right side of the kitchen, and the bread box was right next to it.  My coffee maker was on the opposite side.  Counter space was  cluttered.

We have two appliance “garages” with tambor doors and on the right side of the kitchen, I had been storing my cookbooks in it.  The door wouldn’t close, so the cookbooks were always visible and sometimes a mess.

Now look at the counter on the right side:

I moved the bread box into the appliance nook, and store the electric knife way at the back on top of it, and the butter dish is in front of the electric knife.  There’s enough room for the bread box door to open (it has a cutting board in the door) and leave room for the toaster, my little coffee pot and PC’s giant grind and brew machine.  Morning coffee and toast, all in one place.  Also, the cupboard below this section has cereal, and the bowls, saucers and coffee cups are right above the coffee makers, with silverware in the drawer right below.

Here’s a closeup of the bread box, just because I love it. It’s probably from the 1950s or 60s and is a lot like the one my Grandpa had in his house.

Above that is the corner cabinet where we had stuffed PC’s coffee stuff, a bunch of medicines (since you’re not supposed to store them in the bathroom where it’s damp and can ruin meds) and miscellaneous junk.

Here it is now:

At the top is a basket of empty jars, as well as PC’s jar of flaxseed (he eats them like candy, by the recommendation of his gastroenterologist).  The middle shelf has a lazy Susan for common meds like Tylenol, cough syrup, etc.  The red tin box holds other medications out of sight, like Midol, foil packs of Dairy-Ease, boxes of cold capsules, and so on.

The bottom shelf has PC’s extra coffee grinder, a second set of parts for his coffee machine, and his container of coffee beans.  At the left, my jar of tiny coffee filters, an antique blue mason jar of coffee, and behind that my jar of sweetener.

The opposite counter on the left side of the kitchen now holds my crock of kitchen utensils, the salt cellar, our food processor and the KitchenAid mixer.  I had more kitchen utensils but put them in a box to see if I use them in the next several months.  If I don’t, they’re going to Goodwill.  The drawer below this counter has some smaller utensils, like peelers, etc. And the door to the appliance garage hides the cookbooks.

Oh, and a couple of jars of treats:  cookies and crackers.

Now that things are more organized and make better sense, it’s easier for me to keep the kitchen clean and feel more motivated to cook.

If you’re not asleep by now from reading this post, what have you done to make your kitchen more organized?  Do you cook a lot, a little, not at all?  What makes it easier for you?

My hall closet?  Appalling.  Absolutely appalling.

The hall closet, just about six feet from the bathroom and visible from the living room, was probably intended as a linen closet back in 1953 when the house was built.  Once upon a time, we had sheets stored in it – for about two weeks in 2001 right after we moved in.  After that, it became a vertical junk drawer.  Whenever we weren’t sure where something should go, we stuffed it in the hall closet.

Pretty soon, sheets were stored in stacks down in the laundry room.  Towels have always been stored in the more than ample cupboards and drawers in our bathroom.  Truly, our bathroom has almost as much storage as some small kitchens.

I was determined this week that I would get that hall closet straightened out.  I’ve become addicted to Pinterest, and one of my pinboards is called “Getting Organized:  OCD Porn.”  It’s just pictures with links to well-organized kitchens, cupboards, closets, shelves, garages, drawers.  Reading through some of the websites and blogs with these pictures, I developed a strategy for my project today.

1.  Decide what the closet is going to be used for.  We don’t need it for linens – we don’t have a lot of sheets and have decided that Rabbit’s spare sheets will go in the top of the closet in her room, and likewise for ours, in our room.  Spare blankets/comforters can go in our cedar chest or in a cabinet/cupboard we’re planning for downstairs in the laundry room.

What do we need it for?  Well, all of our board games have been stored for years on a high shelf in our coat closet – not very sensible because Rabbit can’t reach them to get down or put away.  So I wanted to move the games into the hall closet.

I also have stored my sewing machine in there for years, and until I can find a place in my office for a sewing area, I can keep my sewing machine, box of supplies, cutting mat and tub of fabric remnants in the closet.

We also need a central place for the first aid stuff, as well as light bulbs.  And there are miscellaneous pet things, seasonal party supplies and a few random craft items that had no home.

2.  Empty the whole wretched closet and start sorting.  First I took everything out of the closet.  Dear God.  An old CD player.  Two humidifiers.  Scads of cleaning chemicals.  Party supplies, old pillowcases, Easter baskets, bags of empty plastic bags.  Two plastic rain ponchos.  Light bulbs, felt, spools of thread, candles, curtain rods, bookmarks, bottles of glue. Pipe cleaners, antique table cloths, scraps of paper, a large bag of gauze bandages, several ace bandages, cat hairball medicine, some dog flea medicine, bottles of old shampoo, a hand towel I KNOW we haven’t seen since 2001, some Visine that expired in 2005, old tempera paints, a PVC pipe marshmallow shooter, and on and on.  Here are a couple of pictures.

3.  Set up a sorting system and put things in categories.  I ended up with the following categories:
1.  Sewing and fabric
2.  Healthcare items
3.  Crafts
4.  Parties and holidays
5.  Lightbulbs
6.  Home decor and DIY
7.  Cleaning supplies
8.  Office supplies
9.  Toys and recreation
10.  Pet stuff
11.  Toiletries and cosmetics

I put the  toiletries and cosmetics (curlers, etc) into the bathroom.  The cleaning supplies were put in a large tote and into another closet where I will deal with those later when I tackle the bathroom cupboards and cabinets.  Home decor and DIY stuff went into the top shelf of the coat closet.  Office supplies went into my office.

4.  Find containers to group items instead of having them loose on the shelf.  Start boxing/crating items you have sorted.  As much as I would like to have cute matching bins and baskets and little labels on them, we don’t have that in the budget at the moment and I made do with what I had.  My motto is “Done is better than perfect.”

I found a cardboard box from office paper that I filled with a little basket of first aid supplies (Neosporin, Calamine lotion, chigger lotion, eye wash, band-aids) and the rest of the box holds ace bandages, gauze pads, and our heating pad.   I found a fabric bin where I put all the light bulbs.  A clear plastic tote with a missing lid is holding a small supply of craft items.  I put the Easter baskets and the plastic eggs into a plastic grocery bag and tied the top shut.  Same with party supplies.

5. Put things away neatly and smile.

Here is the after:  

On the bottom of the closet, I have my Rubbermaid tote filled with fabric scraps.  On top of it is my (new for Christmas from my father-in-law) self-healing plastic fabric cutting mat with grids, along with my ruler.  Above that on the next shelf is my sewing machine and my box of sewing supplies, along with the instructions for my machine.  When I sew, I just take everything out and set it up at one end of our long kitchen table – this system works just fine for the time being.

Here’s the inside of my sewing box.  Note the snazzy rotary fabric cutter I got with the Christmas money PC’s mom sent me.  I LOVE THAT CUTTER!

There’s also scissors, thread, pincushion, measuring tapes, extra sewing machine needles, regular sewing needles and some other stuff whose function escapes me.  And bobbins.  I hate bobbins.

The shelf above that is the better done than perfect one:  the containers are kind of lame, but they do the job.  First aid stuff and light bulbs.

The first box is the first aid stuff – eventually it will be in a clear container:
The other box is light bulbs:

PC can no longer say “We NEVER have light bulbs in this house!”  Well, we do.  About 20 of them.

The next two shelves up are devoted to our board games.  I had no idea we owned so many!  The lower shelf is for Rabbbit’s games, with a few of ours spilled over.  Our shelf holds PC’s poker chip set, our games, our cribbage boards and a shoe box full of decks of cards.

There are two decks of regular cards and five decks of Pinochle cards.  I don’t play Pinochle and refuse to allow my husband to teach me.  Early in our marriage we drew up two steadfast rules:  he is not allowed to teach me to drive anything, and he’s not allowed to teach me card games.  Because we will end up divorced in either circumstance.

The very top shelf holds the craft box, a basket with a few pet items (hairball remedy, a cat comb we never use, and a heating pack left over from when Hazel was deathly ill and had to sleep on a heated pillow because she was too thin to generate body heat).  Next to that is a bag full of Easter basket supplies and behind all that is a bag of party supplies, a party platter, and a trick or treat pumpkin bucket.

I threw away a lot of things, and many items simply went into other cluttered closets where they will have to be cleaned out and sorted later.  But for today, I feel like I conquered Mount Everest.  It’s hard to overstate the psychological effect of an organized closet after having one in such chaos.  Life is easier to manage when things are clean and organized. At least for me.

Later, I will post pictures of my re-organized kitchen cabinets and fridge, if you can stand the excitement.

If you have a blog and want to tackle a before and after project, please take pictures! Send me a link and I’ll post them here.

JANUARY NINTH, PEOPLE.   We have been doing small activities together in the afternoons to keep occupied:  drawing, doing puzzles, reading together, cutting fabric into squares, craft projects….it’s starting to wear on us.

The other day, Rabbit’s BFF came over for the afternoon and they played fort in the living room.  BFF is allergic to cats, however, and Rabbit’s blankets and the rug had cat hair on them. BFF had watery eyes and a stuffy nose by the end of the afternoon.  While they played, I made homemade tortillas.  Rabbit had one with butter and cinnamon and sugar.  BFF informed me she didn’t like tortillas.  Nor did she like cinnamon cookies, or clementines (the other snacks on offer).  ”I don’t like a lot of things,” she said.  She did, however, say she liked chocolate.  She was eyeing a jar of the last of our chocolate Christmas cookies.  I told her that chocolate was not on today’s menu, unfortunately.

When it was time for BFF to go, she and Rabbit hid in Rabbit’s closet while BFF’s mom and I visited.  BFF refused to come out unless her mom let her spend the night at our house.  I went into the bedroom and opened the closet door.  ”BFF, we do want you guys to be able to have a sleepover sometime before school starts up again, but it’s not going to be tonight.  Rabbit’s daddy is working a long day and will need his rest and this is just too short of a notice.”

Both girls were upset and tried to stay in the closet.  I opened the door again. “And Rabbit, you know you have to behave to get any privileges so if you stay in here and help BFF not do what her mom tells her to do, then you don’t get to have anyone sleep over.”   Well, she practically shoved BFF out of the closet after I said that, and helped her into her coat, and walked her to the door.

I wasn’t kidding when I told BFF that Rabbit’s dad has been working long days.  PC has been working ten to twelve hour days and when he gets home, it’s dinner time and then he lasts about an hour before he has to go to bed in order to get enough sleep before the alarm clock goes off at 5:30.  New Year’s Day was a huge treat for him because he got to sleep until 11:00.  If he came home from a 12 hour day to my daughter having a sleepover, he would have a nervous breakdown.

In other news, I am learning how to knit. I took down the Christmas tree and decorations, changed out the lamps in the living room for the cool round ones that were in my office, have kept the dishes washed and the kitchen counters clean every day this week, and finally cleaned the shower.  It was disgusting and my daughter had scratched a smiley face into the soap scum on the shower floor.

I rearranged the kitchen cabinets somewhat:  I organized all of our coffee supplies into one location and moved some lesser-used kitchen utensils and electric appliances to a closet.  I also cleaned out the fridge and rearranged the shelves into a more sensible layout.  Later today, I am going to tackle the hall closet, which hasn’t been organized in probably eight years.   Maybe I’ll take pictures.  Because I am that interesting.

As a parting gift, here is a picture of Rabbit and PC taken at the wedding reception we went to on New Year’s Eve:

Why should a random number on the calendar be the only time we feel that we’d shrugged off the regrets, disappointments and mistakes of the past, with a clean slate for the future?

What makes yesterday so vastly different from today for so many people that they make resolutions to change, dramatically, what they do or what they eat or how they live?

For the past few years, starting with the year my dad got sick, the year has ended with the thought “So long, 2009 [or 2010, or 2011] – you sucky year from hell.  2010 [or 2011 or 2012] has got to be better.”

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a whole year.  That’s a lot of setup for disappointment.

What if we treated every morning as a fresh start, the way we do January 1st every year?

“Hello Monday!  Sunday is over and looking back, I’m going to do better at keeping my thoughts to myself, speaking only kindness and being more responsible for my money.”

Or how about this?  ”It’s Sunday – the start of my week.  This week is my chance to let last week go, and move on with what I know I can do better.”

How about “Hello February 1st!  January had some challenges, but it’s behind us now and this month, I resolve to [fill in resolution].”

When I was younger, the first of January was one beginning, but the biggest do-over for me always started on the first day of school.  Even now, the first day of school feels to me more momentous than the first of the year.  It was always a milestone to mark the beginning of a clean slate, a new set of opportunities, a fresh attempt to correct the mistakes of the last year and build something better.

What would happen if we decided to take the pressure off ourselves and this random time in the middle of winter, when things are in transition from the holidays and our households are in chaos from decorating and parties and travel and visitors  - what if we decided to just stop expecting a number that changes on the calendar to make everything better?

What if we decided that it is OUR responsibility, every day, to resolve to let go of yesterday (or last week, or last month, or the entire past year) and start fresh?  Instead of resolutions, we could make plans.  We can decide that each day is a clean slate, a new set of opportunities, a time to build something better.

Today I plan to be more patient with my family.  To keep the kitchen clean.  To make the bed.

This week, I plan to think of five new things I can do to build up my business.  To read at least three books that I haven’t read before.  To clean the bathroom.  To learn the basics of knitting.

This month, I plan to get my office cleaned and organized.  I plan to spend the month getting my garden planned out on paper and making a list of seeds and supplies I’ll need.  I plan this month to try to spend less than $150 on groceries, to see if it can be done.

Don’t make grand plans that defeat you within days.  Break your idea of success down into small achievable goals by the day, the week, the month.  Be kind to yourself.

Don’t think of the past day, month, or year as a defeat or a mistake or an apocalypse of misfortune.  Think of the good things from it, think of the things you learned, think of the motivation it has given you to do something differently.

Let’s not start our year focusing on what was wrong with the last.  Let’s start the new year or the new day focusing on how we can make this one better.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

For one of my favorite posts about doing new things in a new year, visit this post from January of 2009.

We were raised on very little money.  We almost never had new clothes, or fast food, or new furniture.  There was no “teen line” in our house the way my friends’ homes had, there was sporadic cable television but mostly two or three channels.  My parents did not have gas service to the house and as a result, from the time I was ten years old, we did not have a working furnace or a water heater.  They heated the house with an old wood cook stove for years until buying a second stove to heat the living room and the rest of the house.

This was in the 1980s, folks.  Every day after school, my sister and I had to carry in firewood and we heated water in pots on the cook stove to use for bathing.

No, it’s not ideal and it sure wasn’t easy, but it was not child abuse, either.  (Although at the time, we might have argued otherwise).

Here’s what we did have, though.  Homemade bread and homemade tortillas.  A big noon meal every day of the week, which we often walked home from school for, with home-canned (organic) vegetables, homegrown (organic) potatoes and meat that was often from my brother-in-law’s ranch.

We had a large yard, a short walk to school and church, plenty of books, lots of family visiting, dozens of nieces and nephews to play with, and the opportunity to earn pocket money by babysitting or tutoring or getting a part-time job at a local restaurant or business.

We had library cards, access to the local college library, excellent teachers (and some terrible ones), nice parks and in the case of my younger sister and myself, we had pretty much free run of the upstairs of the house to do with whatever we liked, provided we got our work done.

My parents were middle-aged when I was a kid – the older siblings got them when they were younger with more energy.  By the time my sister and I were born, the folks were in their 40s and it was the 1970s.  They helped start a natural foods co-op in our small town, subscribed to The Mother Earth News and went organic in all their gardening.  My dad hardly ever threw anything away, which was a giant pain in the ass when he died and we had to sort through his crowded shop and piles of scrap lumber behind the house.

But in his glory days, he was remarkably self-sufficient and I like to think my parents taught us about how rewarding that could be.

For instance, yesterday I was homebound with my daughter. She is out of school until January 9th, and we’re trying to spread out activities so we have plenty to do during her vacation.

We spent the day thusly:  having lunch of peanut butter and jelly on homemade bread, with a side of raisins and clementines.  While we ate, we took turns reading out loud from “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Rabbit was thrilled when Laura got a fur cape for Christmas from the church because Nellie Oleson had been so mean bragging about her own cape.

We tore open three old pillows I’d had stored in the basement, and cut the fabric from an old skirt of mine (black with white outlines of leaves) into squares, sewed them into pillowcases, and stuffed them full of fiber batting.  Then we went through a giant basket of Rabbit’s outgrown clothes (the special stuff we couldn’t give away) and found her Little House on the Prairie sweatshirt. It was about three sizes too small so we cut the sleeves off and sewed it into a snuggly pillow.

Rabbit played in the yard.  I talked to one of the neighbors.  I baked bread.  Later we read more from the book and then lost ourselves in our own books.  Rabbit took a nap.  In the evening, she helped me pick out fabric scraps to try to make an impromptu patchwork quilt. The squares didn’t line up evenly but it was a quick experiment and not meant to impress.  I took the resulting placemat-sized quilt top and sewed it to another piece of fabric to make a pillow for my rocking chair.

We didn’t spend any money on yesterday’s entertainment.  Saving material, getting creative with what is available, spending TIME together…these are the things Rabbit will remember.  This has been a huge revelation to me, the way we’ve spent our time together recently.

Yes, from my childhood, I remember my parents worrying about money. But I also remember my friends being envious of our homemade bread and my mom’s cooking, the nights we played cribbage with my dad by the heat of the wood stove, watching the public TV auction fundraisers with my mom, having TIME with them.

People say time is money – well sometimes it is.  But time is precious and free and valuable all at once.  It is the greatest extravagance, the greatest squander and the greatest gift we have to offer, especially to our children.

Do you spend time, or save time, or waste time, or give time? What will enrich your life the most? If you have children, how do you allocate your time with them?