Yup, Kat, here it is. And what a month to try to de-clutter, but I am so proud that over the Thanksgiving weekend I made more progress on the kitchen and living room than I have in all of the other months I've been working on this.

I didn't empty the room, but I moved a lot out and only a little back in after the big get-together. I can see the chair rails and wainscoting around the room and can actually hear that faint echo one gets when there is enough space in a room even if there is furniture. The counters are clear, appliances have been moved to what I hope are more logical locations. Because there is less stuff in both rooms they both also look a lot bigger.

I don't know if we'll get a tree this year. I didn't get one last year, but the couple of years before that I had magnificent trees. I don't get the tree until christmas eve, and then I go down to the nursery at the corner and offer them $10 for a tree that they'll put at the curb in a day's time. I fought too many fires with the Forest Service to be happy with a dead tree in the house for long. It's usually down before New Year's.

I have a lot of holiday ornamental stuff and I have been weeding it out somewhat, but maybe this year I can make two sets--the stuff I really like, and the rest, and see if I don't use the less-loved set in the next year or two, maybe donate that somewhere. Also, I have a bunch of plastic ornaments that I picked up at the curb last year. I'm going to go put them up on a tree that a friend has decorated for years, but she skipped for the last two. She used to decorate this juniper deep in the woods across the road from me, but her dog got older and couldn't walk that far so she stopped. Now the old dog is gone and she has a new young one, so I'm going to decorate her tree for her to discover.

Ssshhhh! Don't say anything! :)

SRS