COMING SOON. . . .

A new year is fast approaching, are you ready?

When I was younger I always tried to start the year with a clean house, as well as have things somewhat better organized. Of course, that did not last long - the organized part anyway.

I have gotten out of that habit ever since my hip and knees got really bad. But this year, I am working on it again. I have been sort of forced into it since Felix died. He made such a mess with tracking his litter all over the house this last year, plus messes around food dishes, and water bowls all over the house, and a small milk saucer next to the fridge, not to mention many toys that he no longer had an interest in. I must admit that, even though I loved having Felix around, I was getting tired of  having to work and walk around those things. Plus, with having walking difficulties, I was getting concerned they might cause me to fall, and I don't need that!

I am not going to have this house 'perfectly' clean by the new year (or ever anymore!) but I have been busy doing a more thorough vacuuming in every room. Remember, I have carpet in every single room in this house, including kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. That is not my preference, but when renting you don't have much choice.

All the cat food, toys, and treats are gathered and boxed so my daughter can take it all to an animal shelter in her city the next time she comes this way. The litter boxes are in the garbage and that area has been cleaned up. I still need to shampoo all the carpets but I am not sure I can handle doing that myself, so may have to wait until one of my daughters will be here for that as well. Nose prints are on a few of the windows, but it is frigid cold right now - only 9 degrees at 3 pm - so washing windows, even inside, will wait for a much warmer day.

I am not good at making and keeping New Year's resolutions. Is anyone? Some of my friends and fellow bloggers do make a list of goals for the new year. One priority for me is to continue to do some deep decluttering, especially paper things - recipes, magazine pages of hints and things I like, old financial/business type papers that are no longer necessary to keep. I have decided I am a paper hoarder. Not as bad as those on the TV show!! But I do have way too much, and to be honest, they are never looked at again after I saved them. I can always look things up online quicker than trying to find a paper in a huge stack or 4 drawer filing cabinet.

I also intend to work at blogging more regularly again. I have neglected this much too long. And I have lots of work to do in getting all my genealogy research in order. I do want to make a trip to the small town where I grew up, so I can go through the newspaper archives in the library there. I wish they were digitized and online like the neighboring town has done, but they are not. I have found a lot of needed information from those online archives, but some things are missing that might be in the old home town papers.

One side of my family is trying to have a family reunion this summer and I have several ideas of things I would like to do with that. I have started the ball rolling, so now I need to keep it going, hoping other relatives will take on some of the load. We are thinking the last weekend in June for that.

Then my granddaughter is getting married the end of August, and I suspect a bridal shower or two to attend. And a sister-in-law from California is coming for a visit in June, a niece is coming for her all school reunion this summer as well, and has asked to stay here during that time. So the summer schedule is filling rapidly. But it all should be fun times.

I think that is more than enough to concentrate on for the year. And that is why I need to get the cleaning and organizing done this winter! Time to get busy.