A Week of Firsts

This week just abounded with "firsts". The first of the month, the first of the year, the first time I sunburned my nose in 2009, the first time the Little Red Dog saw Mobile Bay and got sandspurs in her fur, the first time the cat burped up on the carpet since December 31, 2008, and the first time I had to do housework this year. What a mad and giddy whirl my life is!

It's snowbird season here on the Gulf coast so the library was balls to the walls on the first day we opened after the New Year's holiday. We're hoping the crappy economy doesn't mean our usual influx winter visitors is down this year. The city has already started cutting the budget and laying people off because of a projected revenue decrease - fewer folks down for the winter would really suck. I'm hoping Obama can deliver on his promise of change and get us out of this recession and quickly.

At the moment, we are okay here in the Green House. The offshore oil and gas industry still needs supply boats so the company the Taller Half works for still needs able bodied seamen. I've have made some adjustments to our household budget - cut back on the satellite TV channels (how many versions of Starz do you actually need anyway?). I canceled the online music subscription that wasn't being used very much and I'm only going to the grocery store once a week and then with a list - no impulse buys. The economizing that's the toughest to do though, is not buying any more beads (aarrgghh, the pain :<), yarn, paint, etc. I need to use the things I already have and allow my creativity to come up with new designs and patterns. I mean, isn't that what creativity is anyway? Necessity really is a mother sometimes though.

As a parting thought, I want to share a wonderful piece of journalism from the Mobile Press-Register in 1859. Oh, that we would write so eloquently now.

"A Happy New Year! We have the gratification of offering our readers our cordial greeting on the opening of the New Year. Blessed as we are with a bright and beautiful dawn on this natal day of the new circle of rolling time, and the blue sky that canopies our wide blue horizon with it's warm and pleasant airs, we have besides a world of moral glories and genial sentiments that invite us to the enjoyment of the festivities of the occasion, and the interchange of the compliments appropriate to the season."