I’ve been trying to do everything by myself, not because no one offers to help, but because I haven’t given them the opportunity. For reasons I can’t explain, I assumed I needed to deal with all this on my own. Asking for help has never been a strength, even when I was little and had trouble with my math homework (which was like, all the time.) It’s only when I’m close to losing it do I ask, and by then I’m so frazzled that I act snotty and beleaguered, among other things.

But Emma and Bob both did a lot this weekend and I plan to involve them as much as possible as we go forward. On Saturday, Bob went through several boxes of old papers which had been sitting in the garage, some dating back to when he moved to New York over twenty years ago. He tossed nearly all of it. When I did my paper purge in January, I filled a bag with old pay stubs and similar documents, along with the credit card statements which seem to come at least a few times a week. We took it all to a neighboring town where the Rotary club was having a shredding fundraiser. For $20 we were able to unload a lot of paper and have it all safely shredded.

We freed up more space in the garage.

Obviously I don’t want to see the paper pile up again. I find credit card offers to be the biggest pain, because I worry about just recycling them, so I put them aside to shred, but then they pile up. But filling out a form here can take you off credit card offer mailing lists for five years. There’s also a way to get off the lists forever, which is a little more involved.  I’m hoping to see a difference in the next few weeks.

My next step is to remove my name from catalog lists, which you can do here.

As promised, Emma did some cleaning. She told me the library is ‘sad and serious’ and took it upon herself to make some improvements to the appearance of the room as well as the clutter. The library is home to her toy kitchen, which is well-organinzed.

My goal is to make the grown-up kitchen this organized.

Stuffed toys bring tired décor to life.

This is the ‘kid’s table’ complete with vintage Nerf football from 1978.

Yesterday I also realized that having dinners planned for the week goes a long way towards making me feel optimistic and in control. I haven’t been sticking to my schedule but last night I parked myself in a chair and made a list. I had things on hand for tonight’s tacos. But I didn’t feel like spending Sunday evening in a store so I last night I ordered everything from Peapod. My groceries are being delivered tonight between 8 and 10 pm, which is a little late but it works for me. Ordering online made it easier to think about cooking some things to freeze. I ran out of my freezer meals a few weeks ago and didn’t have time to make more, which would have made meals for the past few weeks a little easier. I find it’s also a lot easier to avoid junk food related temptation when buying groceries online.

All in all, not a bad start to the week. I’m going to keep Emma’s Beanie Boos company, read my book and wait for my groceries to arrive.