February has been a hard month for me. I'm tired of being cold. I'm antsy for spring to start. It has been cloudy and rainy for a week now, the weatherman says that our temperature is 20 degrees below normal. My motivation is sagging and all I want to do is wrap up in a blanket and sit on the couch with the TV or a good book and a glass of wine.
But, FINALLY, today the sun came out for most of the day and it put me in the mood to get busy. It was still cold but the sunshine made all the difference, the dog sat out on the deck most of the day and I got some empty boxes out and started cleaning away the clutter.
Awhile back I talked about how I wanted to clean out my bookshelves, clothes and knick knacks. I had brought some boxes home from work and I tackled the bookshelves today. I ended up with two boxes of books I could possibly take to a secondhand bookstore and make a little money off of and another box and a half of books to out of date to be of any use and I will either give them to the goodwill or put them out on junk pickup day. I also have a bag of old music cassette tapes that I will put out for junk pickup. I also boxed up a few knick knacks to give to the goodwill. I did keep the knick knacks that my son had given me through the years as gifts when he was little.
Now let me tell you about junk pickup. We have three days to put stuff out and then the city will come pick it up sometime the following week. During that week the "junk pickers" ride around in their trucks and stop and look through everybody's junk. Some are looking for aluminum to cash in, others for decent toys or household items that are still usable while others are just looking for anything they can be used. My mother once put an old toilet out and by the next day it was gone, so I feel fairly hopeful that someone will snatch up the old books and cassettes and they won't end up in the landfill.
I still have the closet to go through but that will be a project for next weekend. Oh yeah, I also got one of my junk drawers cleaned out and was able to shred a bunch of old papers and receipts. And I have a small corkboard hanging in the kitchen that was full of old business cards, newspaper articles and whatnot and I got rid of most of that. All in all it felt good getting rid of all that stuff. Making your life simpler isn't always as easy as it sounds.
In other news, I have been doing more and more recycling and I'm feeling pretty good about that. I have two bins and they are stuffed full. I still struggle at times with the plastic bag issue. When I'm at the grocery I use the bags to put fruit and vegetables in with the intent of saving them and reusing them the next week. But habits are hard to break and sometimes I forget and throw them away or tear them open without thinking. I'm thinking of buying some cotton bags that I saw on Amazon. They are used for produce and when you get home you are supposed to keep the produce in the bags and they will keep longer in the fridge, just like those green plastic bags they advertise on TV. I am using my old bread bags to pick up after my dog when we are out for a walk and I've acquired a couple of more reusable bags to take to the grocery with me.
I'm sad to report that my little experiment with the raspberry and blueberry plants failed. I knew it was kind of early to buy them, but I tried to keep them alive by leaving them inside at night and taking them outside during the day, but with no sun and colder than average temps they didn't stand much of a chance. I've left them planted outside and maybe by some miracle they will come back. But spring is on the way and I will be planting more things when the weather is right, I will hopefully report better progress with that.
The paper towel battle continues.
Kathy
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