One day at a time is not just a tv show. Or an AA slogan.

I finally took down my meager outdoor decorations yesterday.  Yes, on Monday, January 9th.  Oh, yours were down the day after Christmas? I'll try not to hate you, much.

I haven't been able to motivate myself to deal with the crappy decorations, partly because I've been sick, mostly because they are so fucking crappy.  We have tons of lights, but only have outlets outside in the backyard, so it's either use giant orange extension cords or do without.  Lately, we've done without.  I miss the lights, and am seriously considering hiring someone to put in an outlet out front, but cheapness and inertia have so far kept me from doing so.

Instead, I've been putting up really shitty looking greenery and some of those plastic outdoor ornaments, which pale in comparison to the lightfest going on next door and across the street, but are marginally better than the creepy ass elf/demon the people down the street set up in some sort of half Halloween/half Christmas tribute.

The main reason the ornaments even came down yesterday was because I was working from home and the mail lady stopped off with a package [fuck it - I'm continuing to order stuff with a goal of receiving a package a week because I LOVE GETTING STUFF IN THE MAIL {this may or may not be a cry for real mail from you all} and I'd much rather order something than deal with traffic and general idiocy] and I was suddenly, immediately embarrassed that she had to walk up to our porch still festooned with greenery and bulbs.

The ornaments and fake green pine[?] garland had to go.  I bought some giant outdoor ornaments from Target after Christmas to put up next year [with lights? Maybe?] fully intending to toss the bullshit stuff I hung up this year.  It's those sad long swathes of plastic pine needles that are never full no matter how much you try and pry them apart and that I got cheap for a dollar each years ago.  But not, "Oh, no way, you only paid a dollar for that?" kind of cheap. No. It's the "Really? A dollar? Each? . . . You got robbed." kind of cheap.

So I went out and pulled it all down and stuffed it into garbage bags, kind of wondering if I should bother trying to save some of the less dumb looking/completely intact ornaments. And shaming myself into actually picking up the bulbs that fell in the flower beds, because do I really want to be that white trash family?

I'm not saying a single thing about the patio furniture that's still on the deck outside.  That's been snowed on.  Twice.

It's all about baby steps.