Bonus Days

  I received a text message from my principal last night that we would be closed Monday and Tuesday due to the extreme weather anticipated in my area. I intend to use my time wisely. I'd already decided that I was going to head the 25 miles home early from GF's house because it had started to rain and one thing I am not fond of is driving in freezing rain.
After running a couple of errands in the early afternoon (cat litter for me @ $11 for 30 lbs. & dog food for GF, then a quick run for a small bag of shredded carrots for my school cafeteria salads to tide me over until the food delivery came) GF and I had an early dinner of herb crusted eye of round, rice, brown gravy, and candied carrots. After cleaning up the kitchen GF rode along with me to the gas station. He is such a sweetie he offered to go and pump the gas for me. What a guy! And since I'd just gassed up on Saturday morning I only had to put $20 in to fill up for the week.
Then I took GF home, packed up my car, and headed off. It was odd to return home by 6 pm on a Sunday. Adult son was watching the football game so I decided to get right to work and get some Christmas decorations all put away and be ahead of the game before going back to work. I had the kitchen all stowed away and the dishwasher humming with cups and teapots that got flooded in their storage container when I received the news about no school until Wednesday. Here is my teapot collection once again on the shelves of the hutch they 'live' on (during the holidays I have a collection of Christmas teapots that go there, now stowed away until next year).

I figured I might as well keep on going until 9 pm when I knew I'd want to sit down and watch a favorite program of mine (Alaska The Last Frontier..check it out). I got all of my dining room and living room decorations put away and the bins down cellar and a second load of teapots (I have an extensive collection) in the dishwasher by 9. A nice hour in front of the tv and then another snuggled up in bed with a book and it was lights out.
I was up early this morning and settled in at the computer with a cup of coffee to social network and figure out my plan for the day.
1. I am going to undecorate the tree so sons can haul it to the tree lawn for trash collection. I already have the bin for the decorations next to the tree.
2. Laundry. I want to wash my Christmas fabrics (including tree skirt before packing it away) as well as do a load of dark clothes.
3. Baking. I am going to make a loaf of bread as a housewarming gift for my daughter M who just moved into a new place last week.  I am also going to bake a batch of snickerdoodles and pack some of those up for her as well.
4. Soup. Although I declared Tuesday as soup nights so I could use my slow cooker I decided since I have two bonus days I will make soup today on the stove. I think I'm going to take a small container of soup to daughter as well as a container of soup and some cookies to my pregnant DIL. The soup bones are roasting in the oven.

I promised M that I would come by and see her new place all set up (I helped her move on New Year's Eve so I've seen it filled with boxes, lol) and I am hoping the weather will be co-operative.
And speaking of the weather so far so good, the temps are much colder, in the teens right now but dropping and the worse is yet to come. And we did have last night's rain freeze and some slight snow fall on top of that. And it is snowing lightly now.
5. Cleaning. Now that the Christmas decorations indoors are put away for another year I am going to dust, swiffer, vacuum, & mop hardwood floors in the dining and living rooms, then clean counters and cabinets doors and mop the kitchen floor. Then finish up by giving the upstairs hallway and the bathroom a good clean as well.
And today is going to be the first of my $0 expenditure days for the week.