Giving

I love to give. I like to find cool things for peole. It does not have to be for a special occasion, it can be just because I saw it and I thought of them. So now, at the height of the shopping season there are gifts everywhere waiting for wrapping paper. I am in the midst of wrapping presents to take to Ohio and to church and I really want them to be the right gift for the right reasons. I went for two angels at work angel from the angel tree and one angel at church. I love to find the right things. I love shopping.

I just looked at our finances and those are not so hot. I am not behind the eight ball by any means, but it will be close for a while before it gets better. With a new baby coming, I need to be extra careful. My resolution is to not spend a lot of money in the next 8 weeks and see if I can reign it in. We put in some major money in my car and I was extravagant with my husbannds presents. My shopping is a little crazy. And I have a things for vests right now, it seems. The shopaholic books are too close to home, especially when I found two pairs of the same pants I had purchased for MM and I didn't realized I had purchased it. That is not cool.

I just recently purged my closet and I told myself I would get things I really liked. But now I have 6 fleece or something like that vests. I have three more dressy vests. I had to go back and amend the list, because I thought of more. That is almost 10 vests. That is a little much.

So right now I am getting ready to take my girl to Ohio and leave my hubby here for a week. In that time period, I have to get all the things together to wrap. I have to organize, label and get things ready for my return. All I can say is: are you kidding? All this stuff? But I must take care of this and leave the house in some semblance of order for the husband. So I pulled out some cool items for the angel people and I have a few things that I can put away for another time. Right now I feel like all I want to do is sleep because it seems like too much work, but it will work out and be done. I just need a system to be organized. Somehow.

Bills are being paid

I just accomplished something major; I paid off a bill that I have had for many years. I paid it electronically and I am sure there will be some interest I may have to pay next month, but it will be paid. It is a major accomplishment for me and I was hoping that I would have some elation from it. It is a small victory when there are other bills that are mounting as well. I pay them, on time. I am by no means under water. I pay extra and things I buy on credit cards are paid off the same month. At this point, it is the amount that I buy that is the issue. that is another story for another day.

Thoughts

I was reading a post over at Skinny Therese about vocational choices and weight loss. I think that people definitely starve themselves of the things they love and compensate with food. And the food is never enough, the shopping is never enough, the (place your obsession here) is never enough. Why do we search for such things? What are we missing in life that causes these things to happen?

I remember getting really depressed seeing the housing divisions spring up in places where farmland used to be. I have always wanted a home, but seeing that housing spring up, those "little boxes made of ticky tacky" didn't seem like home to me and didn't seem like a good investment. There is a part of me that is wild and outlandish and wants to break free and sail away, to hell with everyone else. But, you can only do that once and you can't go back once you do those things. I am not a prodigal son, nor do I see being welcomed back with loving arms. I see them holding me at an arms length, wondering when I will cut and run again. So I ignore that part of me and focus on the solid dependable foundation of house and home, love and family and my comfort resides there. The wild and outlandish part of me is overpowered by safety and assurance. It bubbles occasionally, but rarely does it get its way. It is more rare now than ever.

The sky looks like snow though we are too far south and it is too warm for that. I keep thinking about the time I will spend in Ohio (It snows a lot there) and I love it there. No, I love my parents... where ever they are. I have a fondness for Ohio, but I feel like my parents raised me in cocoon of middle class, of books and music, thoughts and ideas. I felt so out of place with most of my class. It will be interesting to see what they all are like when I return next year for the reunion... with a 1 month old baby in tow. The kids in high school all were interested in partying and hooking up and all I wanted to do was get out. I knew the world was bigger than Rootstown. Not to say I didn't get a darn good education there, that is not my point... but I knew there was more, and I wanted to explore it. The wild and untamed side of me I guess. There are people who still live there and that is fine.

The neighborhood I am in now is solid working class and that is fine, but I sense this area is not right for us. We need to be elsewhere. The house will go on the market and we will find our spot... eventually. Still in the Richmond area... but I think a little more in tune with who we are and what we do. I like to garden and C likes his ham radio, so they have to be compatible with that. At this point, I know there is a house out there that is waiting to become our home. Somewhere.

For right now, there are more chores to be done, I have things to get rid of... I am purging. It feels good. The guilt of spending the money is there, but I am trying to purge that as well. Clean closet, clean mind.

Curses

Our sump pump as been going non stop for 3 days. We got a lot of rain, but not that much. Even then, the pump would cycle on and off. Well. I was getting very grumpy last night and said to my husband, just shut off the darn breaker. We couldn't find the breaker that shut it off (This was 1 in the morning, mind you). I asked him to try the main house breaker and that worked. We couldn't go through the night with out electricity so we flipped it back on and the sump rattled on again. While I was at church, he tested all the breakers, because you may miss something at one in the morning. None of them turned it off. Conclusion, pulled from the main line into the house.

Finally, my husband, C, had had enough. He donned a tyvek suit and crawled under the house. The line was tacked up to the underside of the floor, there was a j box and an outlet. There was the sump, plugged in with a cheater ground. So it was unplugged.

What kind of idiot:

• doesn't run the item through a breaker for safety purposes and ease of repair.
• hooks up a J box and an outlet for a piece of equipment that pumps water and uses a cheater grounding plug.
• puts a sump pump in where it cannot be reached?

While I shake my head at this mastery of crap that is this new found item in our "house of wonders/horrors" it makes me wonder what kind of mental midget lived here before we did. I will not buy another house like I did in the past, with blinders on and not seeing this type of stuff. My eyes are OPENED. There a lot of things like that in this house and I wonder how the heck are we going to repair the damage of the screw ups and sell it to get our money back out of the house. *sigh*

Well, pooh

I had such grandiose plans. I was going to go to the gym every week. I was going to go every day. What kind of fool am I?

My hips crave the exercise. I can feel the joggling. And yet, I do not go.

I guess my body is too busy creating life to worry about it, but my brain does.

I need to worry about that.