Today has turned out to be a fun day. I made great money just by doing a couple of quick surveys on the job site, the weather’s gorgeous, we stocked up on groceries, and then we got to enjoy my parents’ package. Unlike in that nasty dream I had, no one stole its contents. The box, however, bore an uncanny resemblance to the one in the dream.

It mostly consisted of clothes for Tom, some of which fit perfectly and some of which are a bit snug. But it is just one more thing to motivate him to continue losing weight. He now has more shorts than he would have bought for himself had he lived another 500 years. Even when we had money, clothes shopping was something we both got in the habit of doing only when we needed to, and he never found it much fun. It’s not that I never found it fun myself, I just never got into things like clothes, furs and jewelry to the degree that most women do. I’m more of a perfume and collectibles kind of person, though I’ve quit the collectibles cuz of the room they take up. But it goes without saying that having these nice clothes means a lot to us and we are extremely grateful!

All the clothes for me were either slightly big or just right, but never too small. I got a couple of skirts and tops and several pairs of jeans. I had just been thinking about how it was too bad that my only long jeans were now way too big on me (a size 16) and on their way to Goodwill. Then in comes nearly half a dozen awesome pairs of jeans! I loved the low-cut skinny jeans I swore I would never get. Yeah, that’s easy to say till you lose weight, isn’t it? The weather’s warming up and I’m showing more skin, so I’m back to making even the 20-year-olds envious with my scary biceps, abs and calves – woo-hoo! Hey, I like looking mean, LOL. I think, though, that no matter how many crunches I do I’m always gonna have a slight lower belly bulge. Guess it’s just a part of aging.

I was glad there was no candy in this package because it would’ve melted before we got the package home. That’s because we went grocery shopping after picking it up.

Lastly, I was thinking that I was glad they hadn’t sent any flags, which is mainly what they sell. There’s no real place here for a flagpole other than sticking off the porch posts. If we had it sticking straight out so we could see it from inside it would block the drive. We’d have to have it angling upward and then we could only see it from outside. Jesse would see it more than we would. Then I was thinking about how much I like wind chimes and windsocks and was remembering a windsock they once sent us back in Freeloaderville. Well, I have half a dozen or so wind chimes, but no wind socks until today! I love the two windsocks they sent, and they were the highlight of this particular package, at least for me. I like the bigger, tropical one best and it’s hanging off a corner of our shed. We used an old mini flagpole of theirs to hang it on. I took a coated hair elastic so it can’t slip back against the wall of the shed. The smaller patriotic one is mixed in with the chimes that hang from the porch rafters.

Whiskey really got excited when he heard me go charging out the door down here all excited about hanging the windsocks. My discussion with Tom started off something like this: I think I want to hang this one… BE QUIET! …over there and that one… BE QUIET! …over there. It would look best… BE QUIET! …on that corner so I can see it from the kitchen… BE QUIET! Dogs are as dumb as they are smart, but definitely nowhere near as smart as rats. Rats can at least figure things out. Like when to shut up, though mine’s not much of a squealer.

They ended up inspiring us to make a smart purchase too, with the $30 or so they sent. One we should’ve made upon moving in here two years ago! At first we discussed spending it at Denny’s or on a new skillet. But then it hit me that I would now have to hang clothes since we’ve now got so many of them, where I used to hang-dry them depending on the weather. I saved a third of the closet rack for that, but now it’s filled up. Well, we don’t have a dryer and we can’t hang them out in the cold, wet winter, yet our drying rack is rather small. So we looked online at these indoor/outdoor retractable clotheslines which I’ve seen in hotels where you pull the line out across the tub when you want to hang clothes. So that’s what we’ll be getting, and in the winter we’ll run the dehumidifier when they’re hanging. Better yet, I wish we had a real house with a laundry area! I miss living in a normal house with full-size appliances that are always hooked up, and with enough counter space and outlets! sighs Maybe someday.

I didn’t read it, but I saw a great headline for once that said, Exit polls: Conservatives fall short of the majority.