Am I the Only One?

Everywhere I look, people are excited, decorating, happy, celebrating, spending too much, shopping, shopping, shopping... And me?

I sit.

And cry.

And eat.

Christmas has never been a big favorite of mine. Too much pressure to "be perfect", whatever that is. Yet, when the Airman was growing up, it was a wonderful time. I couldn't start soon enough. We baked. Decorated. Went to movies. Watched movies. Walked. Talked. And just had a marvelous time.

I miss that.

I have no desire to decorate, bake, shop, eat (more than the coffee ice cream with chocolate bits that I had for lunch), or do much of anything else. In short, I am blue. More than blue; I am a dark hole with no bottom.

Don't get me wrong. I really do want to feel all this blustery excitement, but it just isn't in me. Instead, I want to crawl into my unmade bed, wearing the jammies I have worn for two days, and pull the covers over my head and wake up in spring.

I have really tried. Truly. My shopping is done. And that is all I have in me.

Being blue isn't a new thing for me; heck, let's face it. We all have it. But this dark hole is harder than anything I can see my way out.

December? Seriously?

It is 23 days until Christmas. Where did fall go? Is it just me or does the time seem to fly??

This week has been a blow by kind of week: work every day, tutoring, farm, cutting wood (we still have one more tree to get up below the mountain and half of another one at a different house), and, somehow, finding time to clear out one room and starting to get things ready for my move. While I don't have a time table, officially, I want to put the house on the market in April. It shows well then and it would be the right time to do so. Counting back, then, I have to get a certain amount done Every Day.

This week, I attacked the back bedroom that was the Airman's. His things are in the attic, for now, and that room has been a guest / clutter / overflow room. I managed to clear out five boxes to donate and one bag of trash. And, I am still not finished. I am finding that as I toss, it gets less painful to toss the next thing. Really, the purging is doing me good.

Additionally, this week, I have run a new budget, tightened up a few places and found another way to add to the coffers. I am going to start tutoring below the mountain on Saturday mornings. It is a larger community and the folks there have a more, ahem, disposable income. The ad will go in the paper tomorrow and I will hope to pick up six hours of tutoring. And, I can combine that with visiting my parents... not that I am tight or anything....

On the home frugality front, we have made our 12-pound turkey last into a second week by having it in sandwiches, tettrazini, gravy, and pot pie. The hens are laying again, so we have eggs, eggs, eggs... which means egg salad, fried, scrambled, omelet, quiche, fritatta, deviled, and boiled. Not to mention puddings and custards. I have found it is cheaper for us to go to the "used bread" (day old) bread store and stock up on specials once a month. I bought all the bread we needed for a month for less than $5 -- sliced, English muffins, hot dog buns, and sandwich thins. To be honest, I cannot bake it for that.

My favorite cheapie of the week was on Friday. I had to go cut wood, so I left home early, early planning on stopping at Sheetz for gas (.03 discount with their card) and getting my free beverage for the month (which was a whopping $2.29) and run by Chickfila with a free breakfast coupon so that I could save that for lunch. Daddy laughed and said he had never seen anyone plan their freebies / cheapies as well as I did Friday! He is always so amused by my "making Mr. Lincolon weep" choices.

This challenge is fun and it seems to gather energy as the days go past. A notebook for the new house is started and ideas are flowing. Everything I ever wanted in a little house is going into it while I dream.

How do you create your dreams and bring them to life?