Good Morning and Welcome to Sunday, March 13, 2022! How are you this morning? Alvin and I are well. Adapting to this recent time change. Spring FALL and all of that! My clocks in the house all show the previous time and my phone tells me that it is 9:30 a.m. We were up according to my phone at 5:30 which was 4:30 (until we get used to the difference, I am always converting). So Alvin had his glucosamine chew, his breakfast and went outside. Then we were snuggling on the sofa for a couple of hours. It was 7:30 when we next awoke and it just did not feel like time to get up so we came upstairs, I made the bed and then we laid down and covered up with the blanket from the foot of the bed. For the longest time I just laid there and looked out the window at the sky and the street lamp. Alvin snuggled in and fell asleep. It was so nice. Relaxing. I know yes we should have got up and stayed up. But we do not have anywhere to go and although there is always something to do around the house, I just felt like staying in bed snuggling with my favourite guy “Alvin.” So that is how we started our first day of the spring forward, clock changing time.
The sky is slightly overcast and I think that Mother Nature still thinks that it is 8:30 not 9:30. I do. Alvin does. I wished that our clocks would stay the same all of the time. Changing them is a pain and takes our minds and bodies at least 2-3 weeks to adjust. Now we are losing an hour. But perhaps that means that we are one hour closer to spring. This next day and week to follow are supposed to be all plus temperatures so I hope that is the case. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I have to go to the office, which honestly I am not looking forward to, in the least. Not in the least. I would be okay with going to do our mail outs as we have had to do them for the past two years but for an all staff meeting, team building and such, not really! Any person (not just from my work) that I have communicated in the last while whether in person or by text or on the phone, they all say the same thing – “they love working from home and have no desire to go back to the office.” The world has been talking about working from home since the 1970/1980’s and it took a pandemic to lead us to this place. Perhaps it is time to rethink the whole work environment. If people can successfully do their jobs from home and want to work from home, let them work from home. I get the social aspect but seriously work is work. I do not go to work for the social part of it, I go to work to do a job and get paid for said job so that I can pay for the bills. I have friends and family for my social needs. Somewhere along the way – people got thinking that because we spend so much of our waking hours at work that we needed to make time to be social. Perhaps I am sounding like an old shoe but really I like my coworkers but I do not need to see them. Just me. Well how did I just go from time change to going to the office for two days this week. I do know that it makes me anxious just thinking about it. I am concerned for Alvin, too. He will have someone checking on him but it is not the same.
Off the above topic and onto something else. With spring right around the corner, I was thinking of the traditional “spring cleaning.” Have you started cleaning closets, basements, pantries, kitchen cupboards and drawers? I have done a bit but the one thing that I was thinking of is the “spice pantry.” I have a built in pantry that houses spices, Alvin’s food and dishes and odds and ends. I also have a cabinet that I got when we renovated the old work office and they were selling off office furniture. The cabinet is great, heavy duty and well made. It houses dry goods, small appliances etc. I clean it on a regular basis. The other pantry I need to reorganize and go through the SPICES. I think most of us hang onto spices for way too long – definitely long after we should. A lot of time we purchase spices for one dish and then never use them again or we but too much or we just forget to use them. I am going to go through mine and only keep the ones that I know that I should. It is likely a good idea to only keep what you are going to use. I don’t think it is necessary for one person to have 50-70 different spices. I am guessing on the amount that I have but I do have a great many. Perhaps this spring clean up should involved only keeping things that you at least use once a year or more often. How many of you have things that you are keeping for sentimental reasons? Raise your hands! Mine is up? I know that I have so much “stuff” and I know for a fact that my one and only daughter has no desire to keep my stuff. Oh, there might be the odd little item that she may be interested but they downsized and bought a smaller house so why would she take my stuff. So this spring I am going to get a lot more strict in my what to keep policy. If someone likes an item and I do not use it, it is going to have a new home. I no longer find the need to bring much other than food into the house. One thought for so many people, stop online shopping! I think it is addictive. Everyday I see delivery trucks on my street, yes every single day of the every week. Think of all of the packing that ends up in the landfills. Think of all the crap cause really no one really needs all of that stuff. We don’t. I don’t and you don’t. Tough love. Yup. We have to face facts that we are consuming ourselves to the end, yes I mean “consuming.” Not to rain on your parade and certainly I am not trying to tell you how to live your life but we need to seriously think about our buying practices. Especially with the costs of everything on the rise daily. So many people can barely afford to buy good food and pay for the utilities much less ordering daily from Amazon. Okay, I am done. That totally went from spring cleaning off the rails to buying practices. But it all ties in together. Just think about how much you consume. Do you really need 20 pairs of jeans? Do you need three different coffee pots? Do you need another throw pillow? Did you need to replace your living room furniture? Just because you can do something does not mean that you should. I hope that this has given food for thought, I know it has for me. Although I do not currently buy a lot of things other than food and that is the honest truth, at one time, I was one of those over the top consumers. We did not have online shopping at the time but I went to the stores and the shopping channel and bought more than I really needed and then ended up in financial distress. So there are multiple reasons for my “rant” this morning.
I hope that we all think carefully about our choices. What do we “need” versus what we “want.”
Please have an awesome Sunday. Thinking about our fellow human beings in Ukraine and Russia. Just trying to stay alive in a war that they did not choose. I hope that it the war is over today. Peace to all.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus and possibilities.
Always, Carol & Alvin
Time for a refreshing shower. Get rid of the cobwebs and off the rant track. Honestly I am a happy person. One would not think that from the above post. Sometimes we just have to say what is on our minds. I apologize if I have offended anyone, that was not my intent. Just to bring my thoughts to light.
My New Life @ 51 