Quiet House

The house is quiet. No electronics are on (except for the ambient computer, the inexplicable stack of DVR, VoIP and Xbox thingeys in the living room). I'm listening to the neighbors mow their yard, the dogs napping and the tick of a clock I got at IKEA for my birthday a bazillion years ago.

The kid is away for a weekend youth group thing, and I have hours and hours to myself. I cleaned ALL the surfaces in the kitchen (except for inside the fridge or oven), and I'm moving on to declutter the mountain of clutter that clutters up the clutter-magnet areas in the kitchen, dining room and living room. Decluttering is a job best done when one has all the bills paid, all the dogs happy and all the trash cans empty. Which means it's a daunting task that never gets done around here.

I listened to a couple of radio shows and then turned on the TV thinking that I would putter while watching mindless stuff on TV, but it's not mindless. It's mind-sucking. It draws me right out of my headspace and into something else. It's devious and insidious. Pernicious and a couple of other -iouses. In fact, I'm very close to calling ATT and disconnecting everything except the internet.

Once I'm back in my own groove, I plan to cut out some last things to sew up for a little friend for xmas gifties, and then the epic mail run will be Monday. I always cut it close on the mail drop date, but this year, it's CLOSE.

Most of all, I spent last night watching a fun new show that I've got queued on Netflix: Hotel Babylon. It's a slightly racy hipster version of the Love Boat/Hotel (remember James Brolin's hit TV series?). The hotel theme isn't a new one, but this is a particularly clever one that is nice low-calorie fluff. Knitting with novelty yarn kind of TV. I dabbled in eating myself stupid with popcorn, wine and then some chocolate. By the time I had moved on to the cheese, I realized several major revelations about me: a) booze is a gateway drug to overeating, b) popcorn tastes really awful and leaves your mouth all greasy, and c) my chocolate tastes are very very expensive ones.

I decided that I was going to give myself the gift of weight loss for the holidays. Tonight is a dinner party, so I'll be testing my mettle, but I want to be in the minority. I am GOING TO LOSE WEIGHT DURING THE HOLIDAYS. I won't feel deprived, I won't cheat and I won't mope... it's a gift I richly deserve.

See what a little quiet can do? Uh oh, the neighbor has fired up the mower, now right under my window, so I'm heading into the other bedroom to sew. And not eat.