More snow hatred & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Everyone talks about how they love the snow…as I’ve said before…I HATE IT. I now have another reason to hate it…we’ve not had any garbage pickup since December 12. We had the snow on December 18, so normal garbage pickup on December 19 was canceled, then canceled again on December 27 due to more snow. Pick up will be delayed an extra day this week due to the holiday. Can you imagine all the garbage out there rotting? Especially with all the extra garbage produced because of the holiday? Many people are ignoring the “new” schedule which was published by Waste Management, and simply leaving their garbage out on the curb in bags, because their bins are full. It’s a mess. My one bin is totally full, and I have a few bags in the garage, which freaks me out because we had a dead rat in our crawl space this fall…we found out he was there because he started to decompose and smell up the downstairs. And where there is one rat, there are more. Our neighborhood is near the water, and rats are just a fact of nature when you live near the water…but they can be controlled if you don’t leave “food,” (i.e. garbage) around for them. Our biggest ongoing problem is our neighbor who doesn’t take care of his garbage. We had an exterminator come and get rid of the critters under our house, but garbage is a big attraction for them to return. This garbage debacle with Waste Management is just another reason I hate the snow.

My cold seems to have come back…either that or I’m developing a sinus infection. Coughing, hacking, sneezing, stuff coming out of every orifice in my head. I know...TMI… I’m sure my husband wants to go out or do “something” tomorrow night. He’s a much more social person than I am. I really would prefer to stay home and veg out.

In the past 10 years, I’ve never been much for celebrating on New Year’s. During almost every other night of the year, I’m in bed…or on my way to going to bed…by 10 p.m. I have to get up at 5:45 Monday through Thursday for work, and I don’t function well on too little sleep. I’ve gotten in this routine of going to bed fairly early, so even if I’m on vacation or on weekends, I go to bed by 11. I love my bed! Buster is so used to us going to bed before midnight that he gets upset if I ever stay up late. He’ll look at me and tremble and shake…”why aren’t we going to bed?” Bed is just about his favorite thing too, but he won’t go without me. (My hubby is a night owl and often stays up until 4 in the morning watching movies or reading…so I usually am dead asleep when he comes to bed later)

Speaking of celebrating on New Years, I have to admit I DO like to drink (in some ways I prefer liquor to food), but as I’ve gotten older, alcohol is losing a bit of its allure. There’s the ever present fear of getting a DUI (and losing my job as well as bringing shame on myself and my family), so I don’t like to drink and drive. And, if I “over-drink,” I feel like crap the next day, and I hate to feel like crap. It takes me a few days to recover, not like the olden college days when I could drink most guys under the table and still be in class the next day at 7 a.m. halfway across campus. Then again, when I drink, I tend to NOT eat, which I think is opposite of many people and I think that’s another reason I like to drink. In the more distant past, my most successful diets often included fairly large quantities of hard liquor. I once lost 15 lbs mostly drinking vodka and grapefruit juice (and not eating) for two weeks. And there’s nothing like a few strong Rum & Diet Dr. Peppers on an empty stomach while watching Judge Judy by myself on a Friday afternoon before my husband gets home from work. Three drinks will usually do it. More than three is too many, fewer than three is too few. Three is just enough to get a good buzz, but not enough to produce a hangover.

Well, I digress. For New Year’s Eve, I’d prefer to just sit home, drink a hot toddy, or hot buttered rum, nurse my cold, and watch the fireworks at the Seattle Center on TV. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow anyway, so who wants to be outside driving around in the rain with all the other drunken partiers?

Whatever you all decide to do, please do it safely. And please pray for us that we don’t get any more snow before garbage pickup on Saturday. Happy New Year!