Hi, everyone! I hope that you had a great first week of 2023. I always like to spend some time early in the year organizing my things, so I've been busy sorting and purging and generally tidying up.

This year, it makes me uneasy to purge to the extent that I usually do. I did get rid of some things but I gave it a lot more thought. Jeans that were a little too tight or a little too big but in otherwise good shape went to my storage unit as opposed to getting donated. The same held true for sweaters that I just don't care for. My logic is that some things could be expensive to replace or even impossible to find in the year ahead. I'd rather have ugly yet comfortable shoes than not have extras when my everyday footwear inevitably succumbs to wear and tear.

So this year I limited my donations to things like shoes that hurt my feet or items I had many duplicates for, like t-shirts. Between myself and my daughter, we still had a decent amount to pass on to someone who might need and enjoy the items.

A splurge I invested in was something I've wanted for ages but never bought - a book stamper that says "from the library of Daisy Luther." One thing I have in abundance and refuse to part with is a huge collection of books. Fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, herbal tomes, DIY books, medical texts - they run the gamut. Of course, any bibliophile knows that our books sometimes have a way of wandering off. It would've taken forever to write in each book, but I've been going through each one and stamping my name in it. I picked the stamper up on Amazon and it was about $15.

I hit the motherlode on meat sales this week. I've found that Monday around 11 am is the perfect time to search of last-day-of-sale meat and produce at our local Harris Teeter. I got the meat you see in the photo for about $9 once all the discounts were taken off. It went straight into the freezer for future meals.