ON MY OWN

Once again I am on my own. James is on a 12 day business trip to China. I can't believe I said it would be just fine if he went. Truth be said "Oh sure. Go ahead," was meant to have a sarcastic twinge, but that doesn't carry too well via email. Things started of well. 20 of the 272 hours are over already. It might not be obvious to outsiders, but I can tell my stress levels are up.

Living up to my word to take the clothes to the donation box only happened, because I put them in the hall and they took up so much room that I could not get by with the stroller. Otherwise I would have forgotten about them again, even though they were in plain sight. 

I manged to take 3 bags with me. On the way there I passed the glass collection boxes. And wouldn't you know it. One contained drinking glasses. Just on Sunday I talked to a friend of mine who is a student, that she needed more drinking glasses. I resisted the urge to pick them out. The fact that they were bulky and ugly made it easier, but it was a conscious effort. 

I heard the collection truck on the way back (falling glass makes an awful lot of noise especially when it lands on top of more glass) and thought I was safe. Once I realized they had not been to that street yet, I crossed over to the other side to stay as far away from those glasses as possible. I must admit that I did longingly stare at the box. I didn't see the glasses, but I knew they were there. 

A clip in my head started rolling, me, saving the glasses from the box, getting them out of the dishwasher. all sparkly to present to the new owner, AAAAAHHHHH! I picked up speed to get away from there. 

Fortunately a few steps further down the road a bag of clothes with a flyer attached to it caught my attention. Curb side collection! Yeah! I checked the flyer. TODAY! Sure enough I had one in my mailbox, too, that I had never bothered to get out. 

5 min later the clothes from the car and the ones still in the house were out on the curb with the flyer attached. 

ALL the clothes gone AND I RESISTED the urge to acquire! I am AWESOME!

COMFORT ACQUIRING

Comfort acquiring is like comfort eating. But instead of eating you get stuff. That's what I did today. After some serious comfort eating yesterday. After I had dropped the kids off and my gaze wandered across the public book shelf pulling out of the parking lot, I got back out of the car and and looked through the books. I took 3. One for the kids to read, one for me to read and one that I think I can sell. In my defense I would like to add that I put 3 other books that I had picked also, back. And I was fully aware of what I was doing. I realized that I am getting these books not because I needed them, or particularly wanted them, but because I felt the urge to take something home. To acquire something. I made the conscious decision to take books home, I gave myself permission. In the hope that it would keep me from eating more chocolate. I am afraid it only worked partially.