Time to Fess Up

Yes I'm still knitting the sweater sleeve and yes it's still cumbersome but I am making progress so I will be patient. Thank God for the weekends and my breaks with the mindless knitting scarf!

**

I was cleaning up the kitchen today after lunch and I noticed my large stack of magazines. I just finished another one today yet 2 more came in the mail. As far as I can remember, I only pay for one subscription (National Geographic) and all the rest are free. Here's my growing pile:



Very neat, all organized by title first and then by month. I thought I should just toss them in the trash - one has been there since August. But I can't do it! Six years ago I started traveling for work so like a fool I signed up for the frequent flier program with every airline I could find. Every program gave me bonus miles for signing up, probably around 5,000 each. Now that those miles are about to expire (since I've never flown with these random airlines or redeemed miles) they sent me offers to use the miles for free magazine subscriptions. I must have 7-8 free subscriptions now and no time to read them all.

This week I'll try to read through 1 magazine a day during my lunch break. There's got to be a way to get down to a manageable amount! Right now I have: Money, Self, Shape, National Geographic, Smithsonian and Newsweek. I think I might have signed up for more than that with the last offer they sent me. Ugh. I tried to get my husband to sign up for some to use up the miles but they turned out to be very sexist (ex. Maxim, Stuff) but he does like to flip through his Backpacker when it gets here.

Last confession for the day: I am hoarding the free address labels that get sent to me in the mail asking for donations. I can't be the only one! I just got another set today from the Arbor Foundation that are very pretty. I don't think I've ever donated to any of the groups that send these to me but I keep every one! I just did a quick inventory to see how many I really have:


With the online banking that we have I will never use these up - and they keep on coming! I need to just slap myself silly next time I think about ordering address labels. I placed an order when we first moved into this house and WHAM! tons of free ones started coming in the mail. If I pledge to not move from this house for the next 20 years I'll probably never need to purchase address labels again. They do come in handy at Christmas time and any other time I have a mass amount of mail to send out. I feel guilty not donating but I can only donate so much in a year. My kid needs to eat too.