Monday, Hooray I did it, I am free!

     The shows are over!  I can concentrate on Christmas.  My husband turns 61 today! We celebrated with the girls yesterday.  Homemade fried chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes, Waldorf salad , German chocolate cake. Yum.  Hubby is at a conference out of town today.
     The Jr. High show went well.  But I did announce my retirement.  I will never do another show for them. Just too much at Christmas.  I do not make any money although money is not the object.  You do this for the love of the theater and to help grow a program.  You do this to give artistic children a place to belong.  But I have worked with this school for 18 years and I am tired and so done!  If all goes well the studio debt will be paid off in May and I want to make money for the first time in my life!  Instead of paying huge amounts of money to high interest debt, I can put it to use to make my life better.  I feel a little selfish, but I have given my time away, long enough.  I want to do for me.  Is that wrong?
    My Daughter lectures me constantly on slowing down and taking care of me.  I have a hard time with this.  But I am just getting so tired.  I know some of it is age  and some of it is health, but most of it is just maturity.  You need to know when you are done!
    
     Out My Window:  We did have a beautiful day Saturday, warm, sunny, of course I did not get to enjoy it.  But it did remind me that there is a sun out there.

     I actually sat down last night late and paid all the bills and balanced both the check books. If the Jr. High money comes through I should see a pay off at the end of the month.  I am so excited.  I still have $800.00 in the Christmas stash.  Which I will whittle down today.  I have many returns to make today and many stops to turn in receipts and costumes although I am not done with the laundry yet.  I also have some sewing left to do, but I am going to run get all of my errands done this morning and sew this afternoon.  Yeah!  I have 2 weeks off!  No classes, no teaching, no rehearsals.  We still have to do the bank and I will have to sew but I am free!
     Also the bedroom is done!  It is very nice.  It has no artwork yet, but that will come in time.  Brown furniture, wheat colored walls, cream carpet with brown flecks.  All the trim is white.  I was able to purchase 600 thread count sheets, mattress pad, 4 pillows, blanket, bedspread, shams, bed skirt (makings), curtains and rods and an accent chair and lamps at Ross for under $200.00.  I took these really cheap curtains and cut them off.  They are room darkening and have insulation (thanks, Judy for the tip).  I also bought a curtain for a valance as the window in the room is one of those deep celled escape hatch windows for firemen.  (hubby and installed this 11 years ago by hand, we dug dirt for days).  I took the left over fabric and made 4 really nice accent pillows (I had the forms in the shop closet).  I also made the bed skirt with an extra sheet and old queen fitted sheet.  I did this in the few breaks I had over the week end. I am just so glad it is done!  If you are willing to find a piece (in this case an odd accent chair in beige, blue, brown, white) and work with that you can really pick up some bargains at Ross.  I think the bed set was $19.00 and the lamps were $14.99 a piece.  I just looked for stuff  that was really marked down and fit together.  The other great thing about this is that I can pay for it!  I have never in my life been able to just pay for something.  How is that!

     Well I need to go get my errands done.  Christmas is in the air!

Have a great and productive Day!

Kim