GETTING READY FOR WINTER

I finally put away all of the summer clothes and gathered the sweaters, sweatshirts, pants and thick winter socks, ready for the cold months ahead. I developed a rotating system that has worked pretty good for this purpose, putting away and bringing out seasonal clothing. First I piled all the summer clothes, mostly t-shirts, shorts, sleeveless shirts from all the drawers on one bed, then transfered winter clothes from storage bins and dresser from the guest room onto the bed. I would apply the same rotating system when it is time to switch from winter to summer. I usually handled the tasks on Sunday afternoon while watching football games to make the work less boredom. As I sorted thru the items, I tried to set aside pieces that could be donated. This time I dropped off two bags of clothes into the collection box at Goodwill. I often thought of the time when my family and I first came to America, our clothings came from donations at the refugee office. We could not believe that people would discard items in almost perfect condition. I wrote about how exciting it was for my sister and I the first time we went shopping. It was great to take the price tags off as a symbol of "making it in America", no longer wearing donated clothes. Now just my husband and I, we filled up a walk-in closet complete with an organized system in the master bedroom and just my clothes alone took up two other full size closets. I mentioned many times that I hate shopping, especially for clothes and spend no more than a few times a year at the malls nearby, yet how did I accumulate all the items in the house? I even stopped buying souvenirs. Who cares if I was wearing t-shirts from Rome, Paris or Malta! I must find a way to purge more, perhaps once a month instead of only when bringing out seasonal clothing. Someone suggested that when purchasing a new item, donate 2 or more from current inventory, would help cutting down on the cluster. How about not buying new items at all and giving at least a carton of stuff every week?

This week I stocked up on canned soups. I hope some marketing person from Campbell's Soup will send me a coupon for posting the above photo, giving the company free advertisement. These are two of our favorite flavors. I loaded up the shopping cart with all 20 cans when I saw the sale price at $1.44 each. I just paid $2.00 at another store for the same items! Another reason we buy Campbell's soups as we collect the labels for the school thru "Labels for Education" program. Sister Rosario reported that a laptop was obtained from the points accumulated.

Here is our brand new kitchen window which should be energy efficient and easy to clean. The new window has better insulation keeping the heat in when it is cold in the winter or when the air condition is on in the summer. We could easily slide the screen over to get some fresh air into the house if it is not too hot. By the way, evident that the housing market is terrible when we saw a bird took a peak inside the birdhouse and left without an attempt to even get inside! We replaced the wooden mailbox with a new free standing heavy duty mailbox with a slot for mail to be safely kept inside a container when we go away for a few days. My husband converted the wooden mailbox into the birdhouse but so far it has stood empty.

Farmer Jack sure got enough wood there!