My Christmas Surprise!

I had been a good girl. Weeks before Christmas Jim had brought home a huge box, set it in our living room and simply threw a sheet over it. He asked me not to look for it was a Christmas present. So I walked around this mystery box a dozen times a day, never once peeking under the loosely drapped sheet. Christmas arrives and I tear off the sheet like a showroom model to reveal an outdoor fire pit!! I had wanted on all summer but never found the extra money. With all the commotion of company, I never actually opened the box until January 1st. After my day of laziness and way too much coffee, I decided at 4 in the afternoon to open and assemble my fire pit in the living room. I cut the tape, flip the lid only to find boxes of Christmas lights?! Not believing my eyes, I removed a few boxes from the top... as if maybe the fire pit was hiding underneath and Jim was playing a joke on me.

Nope. From this view you can see the 37 boxes of indoor/outdoor lights that would fill the box. Apparently, an empolyee had used the empty box to repack extra lights but had failed to mark it. Well, the box was heavy... so is a fire pit. The box had been retaped... but maybe they just wanted to see the fire pit. Maybe if I plugged in all the lights and wadded them into a big glowing ball I could create an Electric Fire Pit! Ahhhhh.... Atlas disappointment set in and I pulled out the camera to document the event. I guess I didn't believe it, so why would the store?

Fortunately, we live in a small town and despite the fact that Jim didn't have the receipt they gladly exchanged it. It took a few days to order a new fire pit and the lady at the counter couldn't believe her eyes when Jim opened the box for her. However, they were grateful for our honesty; as the cost of the lights were more than double the cost of the fire pit! As for now, the new fire pit is still in the box in the living room and the marshmellows are in the cupboard, but I did open the lid to double check the contents!

Let your light shine... be it fueled by wood or electricity!

Out with the Old & In with the New... but only if it's reused, recycled or handcrafted!!

Our brunch served in locally handmade ceramic mugs, hand-me-down plates and forks, a french press that was the "display" model and cloth napkins from the thrift store.

New Year's day brought forth an empty house here on Hollyhock Trail. Stown had left on 29th of December and Jim's parents left this morning before the sun had rose. Jim and I went back to bed after saying our goodbyes and slept in for the first time in a long time. Exhausted from the holiday hustle and bustle, we decided to hang out in our robes all day, sip coffee and catch up on doing nothing. I made homemade pecan sticky buns and french pressed coffee... although in the spirit of laziness we didn't eat until the early afternoon! Tonight we will be carrying on an old German tradition of consuming sauerkraut on New Year's Day to bring good fortune for the next 365 days.

Meanwhile with a new year before me, I have decided to do a few things different this year. I have been preparing for these for a while and are now going to put them into action. The first is buying as FEW new items as possible. I am already a frequent flyer at our thrift stores; be it donating items or shopping for others. Yet, this year I am going to try not to buy any new products for gifts or household usage. The reuse, recycle or handmade theory seems to be even more important as our economy is pressuring us with words like "recession" and "depression". I have already boxed up my old magazine subscriptions and am mailing them to a friend whom does not subscribe. For the few dollars it costs to mail them, we both enjoy the reading and save space in a landfill or recycle bin.

Since we brought back all my stuff from storage in October, I have been trying to purge the clutter. I have gotten rid of shoes, clothes, dishes and countless other cluttering useless (to me) goods. In an effort to reduce and simplify our household, I scrutinize things like never before. Earlier this year I pulled the pull on Jim's microwave, wrapped it in tape and dated it. Vowing that if so many months went by and we didn't use it it was going away. Well, it's gone and so is the cabinet it sat on (which was a black hole for canned goods). I replaced it with a shelf and a couple of baskets I picked up for under $10 and have a more organized pantry area that takes up less floor space in our small home. I also deleted 16 pages of emails that had collected over the past year. Do you know how nice it is to open your email and only see things from that day?

Container gardening is another under taking for the new year. I am looking forward to growing and consuming our own food since I have finally settled down. However, we have such poor soil and are planning to build a new home in 5-7 years that putting in all the work and hours into an "in ground" garden doesn't seem profitable to me. So I have started my research by ordering some used books and being on the look out for any old pots or boxes that might be suitable for vegetables. Our altitude makes for a short growing season but we have a single south facing window to hopefully start some seeds indoors. Unfortunately, it is in our dining room so i fear our table may become a nursery for a while this spring. Anyone with any advice please contact me... I know I can't learn it all from books.

Books can be very enlightening though! A year ago a friend of ours gave us a book called "Your Money or Your Life" while we were on vacation. We got home, it got unpacked and shoved on a shelf. I found it this fall and started reading it. Enthralled with the advice it offered on budgeting and being accountable for your spending I dog eared pages and decided to follow much of the advice drawn out within the pages. Despite, the outdated costs of goods because of the books age, I knew I could benifit from the over all process and planned on starting my new financial accountablity the 1st of January 2009. Then the dog ate the book. I went online and ordered a new updated and revised copy. While the figures had been adjusted to reflect a more modern economy, some of the lists had been edited out (guess I'll have to order the old edition now too). However, the principles were the same... Be accountable and know where your money goes! I created an basic spread sheet and Jim entered it into the Excel program for me. We have agreed to save receipts and track our spending. Let's see if this helps more money go into savings and our debt disappear faster!

I will post pictures from our holiday adventures soon and recap our exciting 2008 high lights another day as it seems like too much work for now. Today was about doing nothing. So that's what I've done... nothing.

Peace, Love and Happiness to all in the year to come.