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I’ve been keeping a secret. And you thought I couldn’t keep a secret didn’t you? Hah! Silly reader, of course I can keep a secret. Of course I did have to tell my writing group, and my BFF, and my neighbors, and my doctor, and the clerk at Hobby Lobby and of course you guys. But I swear, I can keep a secret! What’s the secret? Well you already know (even though I CAN keep a secret) but I’ll say it again anyway. The hubster has been considering a job on the East Coast near our hometown in Maryland. He wanted to keep everything under wraps until the deal was sealed. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. He didn’t even want to tell his mother or our kids to know, or anyone. I was fortunate he told me! Now the secret can be told because when we went to Maryland over New Years, the hubster officially accepted a position with a company on the East Coast. So we will be moving within two months. It wouldn’t be so bad if we were renting our home. But we own it so therefore have been busting our backs prepping it for sale. The “For Sale” sign goes up in the front yard next Friday.

Since we have lived in this house for twelve years you can imagine the massive amounts of junk I’ve we’ve amassed. Being a recently reformed shop-a-holic hasn’t helped matters any either. I swear I was going to get around to fitting in those size 6 jeans one of these days (I am far from a size 6), and they were 75% off when I bought them 8 years ago so it would have been a crime not to have bought them. Don’t you agree? And how could I pass up buying the five Christmas trees over the last several years? Okay, I bought three of them after last Christmas. But come on, I mean, we had to have the 7foot tree in the living room, but then the TV room would have looked bare if we hadn’t bought the 4 ft red tinsel tree for it. And the 4 ft green tinsel tree was 90% off so they practically paid me to buy it. And you know my granddaughter really wanted a small tree in her room here to make her surroundings look festive. And then there was the tree I bought for the den. One of these Christmas’s I’ll get around to putting all those trees up at holiday time, I will! And don’t get me started on chicken. Yes, chicken. The hubster swears I am a collector of chicken. But when they have boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.99 a pound, how can you not buy twenty packages? As it stands right now we have about thirty packages of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the freezer. I guess I am a collector of chicken.


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So with the upcoming move I have been instructed not to purchase any after Christmas bargains. I tried, I really did. I held firm to my promise and didn’t go to Hobby Lobby after Christmas, not even when I got the insider email stating that everything was 80% off. But today when I went to Meijer’s I couldn’t help myself. All Christmas items were 90% off! I didn’t want to buy anything but I was forced too because everything was practically free. So I was really being frugal by purchasing ten boxes of Christmas cards (one of them Hanukah even though we aren’t Jewish. But you never know when you might want to send a holiday greeting to a Jewish friend), four assorted mismatched Christmas stockings, a snowman wreath missing only one eye and his carrot nose, a sheep Christmas ornament, five slightly smooshed bags of bows, three large wrapping paper assortments, a Dannica Patrick Christmas mug, and (drumroll please) a 6 foot tall snowman lawn ornament.


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I brought my loot home secure in the fact that I could easily find an “out of the way” place to stash all my junk treasures. But with “decluttering” our home for sale and packing up everything considered nonessential, I didn’t count on the fact that there isn’t an out of the way place to hide place my purchases. So I did what any red blooded reformed shop-a-holic wife would do. I hid stored them in my teenage sons bedroom closet. I am, after all, female and you know how highly intelligent females are (we think with both sides of our brains you know). What I forgot in all the hubbub was that we are having new carpet put in all the bedrooms on Monday. So the hubster (who only thinks with one side of his brain) has to pull up all the carpet in the bedrooms (and the bedroom closets) this weekend. Wouldn’t you know he started with my teenage sons bedroom today. I suddenly remembered this flaw in my plan about an hour ago when I heard a loud “what the hell?” coming from my sons closet. Oh crud. I thought quickly though and rapidly answered “what the heck has that boy bought now?” Yes, when in doubt blame the teenager. Sometimes thinking with both sides of the brain is a good thing.