Stocking feet and cold wet surprises in the morning gloom...

I rise before sunrise from my nice warm bed. Nice thick socks keep my feet warm on the hardwood floors. Not quite awake, I use the bathroom then stumble toward the kitchen. As I put my foot down just outside the door I'm startled fully awake by a cold sudden wetness across the ball of my foot. EWWWW! The other foot is already stepping into the kitchen. I start to check my walk so I won't spread the cat barf. The second foot hits another cold puddle. Geez kitties! Both socks are now wet. I flip on the light and look down. Clear fluid with a few blades of grass from the kitty greens I bought them. That's a blessing. It's still grossing me out a little, but not as much as it would if catfood were involved. I pull the socks off and walk on the dry sides of my feet to the paper towel dispenser. Dropping a paper towel on the floor, I try to dry my feet. Then I use several paper towels to clean up the puddles. There's a lot, so I figure this is all of it. I wash my hands and feed the cats. As they eat I walk into the dining room and put on my sandals to go out for the paper. I come back in, kick off the sandals and walk through the dark living room. My bare foot hits a cold wet lump. EWWW! I retrace my steps to the light switch by the front door, walking on the heel of the wet foot. In the process, I step on the small rug by the front door. Squish. Another cold wet lump meets my other bare foot. GROSS KITTIES! The light reveals two furballs. I've managed to step on both of them. I find napkins on the table next to me and wipe my feet with them. Then I get more paper towels from the kitchen and clean up the furballs. I go to the bathroom and wash my feet.

If there's any downside to having cats, that's got to be at the top of the list.

I guess I need to brush them more. This is my punishment for slacking on that. But when they come up and give me snuggles and kisses, it's all worth it.

Every year this gives me a chuckle.

Not long ago and far away, Santa was getting ready for his annual trip...but there were problems everywhere.

Four of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones so Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her Mom was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where to. More Stress!

Then when he began to load the sleigh,one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys.

Totally frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of coffee and a shot of whiskey. When he went to the cupboard, he found the elves had hit the liquor and there was nothing to drink. In his frustration, he dropped the coffee pot and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made from.

Just then the doorbell rang and Santa cussed on his way to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said: "Where would you like to put this tree fat man?"

And that my friend.... is how the little angel came to be on top of the Christmas tree.

We thought we were stuck having Christmas at our house this year.

I hate having holidays at my house. We're both such slobs that we end up working like crazy to get the place presentable for company. Then I can't find anything that got put away. Maybe I'm a slob, but I have a general idea where to look for things until my system gets upset by cleaning and stashing of all the stuff. I keep wondering if Ritalin would make it easier for me to keep my house clean. Maybe I'd better bite the bullet and get to the ADD clinic in January for testing and meds.

We haven't had a holiday at our house since my cousin Judy and her husband were killed in an accident the summer of 1998. My family knows how poorly I function when I'm upset. I was very upset for a long, long time about that. Until then, we usually would host one holiday a year.

After a year of no holidays to force us to thoroughly clean, the clutter in our house had grown to frightening proportions. We tried to organize our computer room (bedroom dedicated to our computing) by getting rid of our cheapo second hand office desks and replacing them with matching modular furniture we got on sale. It looked pretty, but it was even less functional than our original desks. I lost three drawers in that trade off. My hubby hogged what other storage there was. My stuff is in cardboard boxes in the hall and under my workstation table. We still haven't assembled two of the modular furniture hutches. They're in boxes behind the couch in the living room.

The third bedroom is the dump room. It's filled with stuff we stashed there when clearing the rest of the house out for company. My hubby also stashed our camping equipment there for some odd reason. My wedding dress is boxed and in the garage and the camping equipment is in the house! What's wrong with this picture??

I do NOT want to be one of those stories in the paper of an old woman found dead in her grossly cluttered house someday. I want a neat house where anyone can drop in to see us without us feeling embarrassed. I want a nice guest room and a hallway clear of boxes.

The point of this whole story is: We had pretty much decided we'd better have Christmas this year. I had grudgingly offered to host, knowing our lives would be stressful to the point that we'd be snapping at each other until the day arrived, when my mom responded to my offer with "You've been under so much stress lately. Why don't we have Christmas at our house this year?"

YIPPEEEEE! We're off the hook! I promised we'll have Easter with no excuses.

Yup! I'm calling the clinic to set things up for January in the hope that Ritalin will make Easter more doable.

Santa says I've been...

Linda
"Nice" with a few naughty marks for excess TV. Also
had a tough month back in February, but has shown real
"nice" effort ever since. Beware of not cleaning up
kitchen messes and forgetting to say "thank you." Very
nice job of kissing everyone "good night."


How did he know?????

It's a really cute site. Check it out! http://www.claus.com/

I guess I'm nicer online than in the real world.

Plummy

Nicer than nice. A real champ! I was really proud of all
the hard work that went towards changing those
"naughty" habits of last year. Treated friends nicely and
was exceptionally honest (which happens to be one of
my favorite traits!) It's amazing what a good old
fashioned "I'm sorry!" can do for a rating. Keep up the
good work!