Tea! Now THAT'S a good idea.

I've managed already this first morning of the new year to get Tom pissed off at me for suggesting he not put flammable materials on the electric cook surface AND have my mother (in Milwaukee) hang up on me because I refused to argue with her while she was insisting that we were, indeed, arguing. (Deep sigh) All I did was say that what is a common rental practice in her area is not usual practice anywhere else. I wasn't arguing. Others had already mentioned the same thing to her (as she had just told me about "arguing" with my aunt about it). My mother can be the most exasperating woman on the face of the planet. Life will be a lot simpler (you'd think I'd have figured this out in the past 63 years) if I just never mention ANYTHING no matter how trivial that counters her world view. (I think that will be one of my New Year's resolutions...) She never has let unimportant things like actual facts mess up her thinking. (After all, she votes Republican...)

But I've also gotten caught up and decluttered some magazines and free papers. And I'm about to message a friend who is horticulturalist at Strawbery Banke museum to see if he wants some mid-'90s "Herb Quarterly"s for his archive. And I've filed some more stuff in my binders.

And I've washed -- FOUR times!!! -- the waist-high stack of black plastic letter files that had been stored in the dusty part of the cellar. I washed them in the shower thinking that would be most efficient. Rinsed off enough dust to have to clean the bathtub drain several times, but when they dried, they still looked dusty. Spray rinsed them off yet again...and when they dried, it looked as if I'd just moved the dust around. So did it again with Windex and paper towels...and when I turned them upside down, found I had to do it one more time... But now it's done and I can organize the loose papers in the bedroom into it and get them off the floor.

Right now I'm literally in the middle of cleaning the two litter boxes.

I think I've done something else useful today besides put the quiche away, but offhand I can't think what. (Maybe make a shopping list for later this week after social security comes.)

I've got to try to make some headway in this room, too. The day is still young...

Linn