Man, oh, man. Would you like to know how many newspapers an ordinary wicker newspaper basket can handle? An amount beyond reason, that's what. I sorted out my particular accumulation and by golly if I didn't say, HANG IT ALL. Well, I did save the Saturday HOME sections and the Wednesday TASTE sections. I leafed through the sections with the advice columns, but then they hit the can. Honestly, after Christmas I am going to count how many TASTE sections I have, because no one, including this blogger, is going to believe it. You would think I did nothing my whole life but save and stack TASTE sections. It's repulsive. Mike said I was a slave to the newspaper. I've thought of that myself.

The newspaper puts out a fancy slick magazine for the rich and famous, it comes out every two months and it comes in the paper. Sometimes I look through it. You find all kinds of interesting things. Like one time a young woman from Mike's church was on the cover and modeling for a whole spread. Another time there was my former piano student. This article showcased her parents' fabulous house. Very interesting. And then tonight when I was saying to myself, Give it up!, I gingerly flipped through the magazine anyway and there was a big color feature on another former piano student's mother. Her business designs and makes the costumes for So You Think You Can Dance? She was instrumental in getting Dancing With the Stars to the USA and worked on those costumes, too. Now, isn't that interesting? I'm going to have to give up interesting things.

I'm playing lots of tricks to get the house ready for Christmas dinner. Everything cluttery looking is going in trash bags. Then the trash bags are going in the guest room closet. I kinda hope someone mistakes them for trash (well, that would hardly be a mistake) and just heaves them in the can. Now listen here, Mike, don't you dare take me up on that, I don't really mean it. But I have a new motto, A Project A Day Keeps Me From Jumping Into The Bay. That's right, I am going to full out tackle these dumb bags. I moved pretty fast with the newspapers, I can do this. Every day in 2010, something significant is going to happen. Because I don't have time for all this mess. It takes all my spare time to dust, which I've had no spare time of late. Yep, I'm sick 'n tired of the status quo, I'm ready to shake it all up.

Went to the little health food store to buy my Christmas food. When I was checking out the girl said, How are you? I said, Well, I WAS in the Christmas spirit until last night when my dog got so sick. I felt so sorry for sweet little Jazzi, but it was a big infringement on my time, if you know what I mean, sorry to admit it. But you have to take it as it comes. She said, Well, just think, in a couple of days it will all be over. I said, That's one way to look at it. But that isn't really how I feel at all. If I were more organized to begin with, I wouldn't be bagging up clutter at the eleventh hour, now would I? I love Christmas. I love Christmas dinner with friends. And singing afterward. I like that we celebrate Jesus' birth. I just have to get better at it.

Okay, I can't think again, this is becoming a habit, the inability to focus.

KEM the Bagger