How I Spent My 4 Day Weekend

Well, I had high hopes for this 4 day weekend.  Starting next Saturday, my staff and I will be working 6 days a week.  Trust me, I'm getting way too old for this.  When I get home at night now I rarely have the energy to feed all of the cats (and the 1 remaining dog) and scoop any litter boxes.  Dinner for me?  All too often it's cereal, unless I had cooked on the weekend and have leftovers.  I rarely stop to pick up something to eat on the way home. It's just too darn expensive to eat out.  Frozen dinners mostly end up tasting like the cardboard container in which they are packaged.  Many nights I just skip dinner, after having also skipped lunch.  Yeah, I know.  No lectures, please.

So, I did get my nearly 2 weeks worth of dirty dishes washed.  I tore up my dishwasher at the end of 2010 and haven't been able to afford to replace it.  Can we say VET BILLS????  I just finished washing and bleaching out 5 litter boxes that have been sitting outside for over a year.

I did manage to run my payday errands yesterday.  Yes, on Black Friday.  I got two prescriptions filled at Target, well after the BF mad house.  Next I went to PetSmart for their BF specials.  Friskies canned food, 39 cents a can.  I bought 8 cases and I saved at least $1.50 per case.  Those should last me a month.  I bought 8 of the 35 pound scooping Tidy Cat litter.  On sale for $8.99 with a $5.00 coupon on each purchase.  So, buckets 2-8 were only $4,25, including tax, each.   WHOO - HOO.  Those might last about 2 months.  I had almost gone through my Buy 1, Get 1 free 14 pound each containers of Tidy Cat.  Great timing.  I had bought a total of 24 of those.  At $7.79 for two, that was a super deal at the time.

Then off to the grocery store where I picked up fixings for homemade potato soup and vegetarian chili.  With both I should have something to eat for dinner for about 2 weeks.  Of course, I'm going to get tired of each before that time is up.  Oh, well.

Intersperse all of this with Laundry.  At my house I'm always doing laundry, mostly because of the cats  Between barfing on the bed and having to wash the bedspread, there are towels, more towels and even more towels.  Years ago I started putting towels under the litter boxes.  Someone, invariably, hangs over the edge.  It's quicker and easier to soak the towels in the washer in vinegar water (bought 4 gallons at the grocery store yesterday) and then wash the towels than to constantly mop the floor or try to peel wet newspaper off the floor.

I had planned to clean and organize my kitchen on Thursday.  That didn't happen, needless to say.  Hopefully I can get started on that tonight and finish up tomorrow.  I did a little bit, here and there since Thursday, but not that anyone but me would notice.  I still need to vacuum the living room carpet.  I am about to get started on scooping at least 4 litter boxes, possibly 6 before the night is over.  My personal batteries tend to run down around 8PM and little gets done on most nights.

I did get the bills paid and out of the way.  Tomorrow, I may be taking my 92 year old neighbor to the grocery store.  And, of course the cooking marathon.  Then, goody, more dishes to wash.  Of course, I have about 20 cat bowls and a dog dish to wash daily.  Oh, I have to finally clean out the fridge, something I've been meaning to do for the past 7 or 8 weekends.  And Monday morning before I leave for work, I'll have to drag a full week's worth of garbage to the street - bags & bags of dirty cat litter in 7 quite heavy garbage cans.  There was no garbage or recycling pick up on Thanksgiving Day.

My world - it's a disaster.  Is it Christmas yet?  Santa, all I want is the energy to clean this place up, the organizing gene and the return of the 2 day weekend.  And, if you have a spare dishwasher and a person to install it, that would be wonderful.