Winter is mousetrap time, and yesterday I noticed one of 2 traps I have in the basement is entirely gone. I know a mouse was caught in it, but it's nowhere to be found. I can clearly here when the traps go off, usually early evening, after the darkness and cold have set in. Very wierd. Same thing happened this morning with the other trap, although in that case, I found the trap...empty. They are getting very good at escaping.

Remember in my last post my belief that you can get around the "too many credit card offers applied for" scenario by applying for more than one credit card on the same day? I was wrong. I got the explanation from one of the two card offers I was turned down for. I was turned down because I had already applied for the Wells Fargo card. I should get the Wells Fargo card soon, and then, happy charging toward the $200 bonus.

Speaking of charging, I did go on a bit of a spending spree for myself. My father gifts each of his kids money, and so I spent only a very small portion of it, about 5% of it.

You see, I've reached a certain point in life. For many decades, i've just naturally been frugal. Well, probably because I HAD to.  I most often shopped with the final price being an important, if not the most important factor in making the purchase. Now, I want to treat myself a bit better, where it counts.

So I purchased some very nice Pottery Barn percale sheets, plus some other sateen sheets elsewhere. (I want to compare them and see which I like better.) Both cost substantially more than the bargain-basement sheets (often flannel) I would usually buy at some place like WalMart or Target. I am really looking forward to sleeping in some quality sheets.

I also very recently bought a nice gray chunky big weave cotton blanket. In addition, I have a very nice Pottrery Barn coverlet I bought about 3 years ago which has still yet to be used (!), as I knew the cat would sharpen his claws on it. I figured he is 15 years old, and that I would wait. He's still hanging in there.

The other thing I've been spending on is cute jeans/straight leg pants. Ever since I lost weight and found I wear a size 6 pant, I've been stocking up on whatever strikes my fancy. ..torn jeans, frayed hem jeans and other little embellishments. I love them all.

A much larger expense was another tree takedown, a towering white pine in my front yard. Now I can rest a little easier when the next storm arrives. I'll need to clear out all the weeds that were growing under the canopy, and now I have a roughly 25-foot diameter space to plant more pollinator perennials and shrubs. There's already a doublefile viburnum and a Japanese maple sapling in there that I will leave, but everything else will go: mostly poison ivy, some black locust saplings and mile-a-minute vine.

Wednesday I had my friend R. and her dog over for a glass of wine; she brought a bunch of her gorgeous and delicious Christmas cookies.

Yesterday I took my dad out for breakfast at Chip's. Today, Christmas eve, happens to be my friend D.'s birthday, and she is recovering from hip replacement surgery, so I told her I'd be over there with some cookies I made for her. I also brought her some homemade split pea soup last week. I won't be doing anything special for Christmas until end of day, when the new man I'm dating comes over. I knew he'd be spending the day with his family, so I suggested he enjoy his time with them, then swing over here when he's done.

Happy holidays, everyone!