Anticipation

This week is a week of anticipation . . . not because of any exciting upcoming event, but because of UPS and/or the USPS.

I go through these spurts of online shopping and then end up with multiple boxes being delivered to my house in big batches. I'm sure my fellow condo association members love it when I get in these stages. Oh well, no one's said anything and I DO pick up my packages from the front door promptly.

Three categories of excitedness:

1. Kindle from Amazon -- This one wins the most-waited for prize. I signed myself up to the wait list in mid-January after hearing from several friends that they enjoyed their Kindles and seeing one in action on the el. I couldn't resist. Sunday, I received a notification that my Kindle had been shipped, so it should be here any day now. I'm really looking forward to this purchase and hope it will help tame the book madness going on in my condo at this moment.

2. Meats from Burgers Smokehouse -- I grew up on Burgers meats and can't live without them. The smokehouse is owned by distant relatives (distant in blood, not distant in area because they actually went to the same church I did, my parents see them every weekend, my mom has their grandkids in school). We would go out to Burgers for field trips back in the '80s and it was great. This was before the time of many sanitary rules/regulations, so we were allowed to go right into the inner-workings of the factory, talk to the employees (we knew them so it would be rude not to talk to them!), and go into the various smokehouses (by season - winter, spring, summer, fall) to see thousands of attic hams slowly curing. It was great.

When my parents come to visit, a must on the "bring to Chicago" list is Burgers products. It's perfectly acceptable to give anyone on my mom's side of the family Burgers products. But sometimes, the "meat stash" needs to be replenished.

Therefore, this week, I will be the proud owner of country cured ham, yummy bacon, summer sausages from different meats, and ham style bacon. It's all going in the freezer and being slowly doled out over the next six months. It's an indulgence, but also a necessity because it's SO good.

3. Crafts from more than one outlet -- This is the category that is absolutely not necessary, but irresistable to me. Whenever I get catalogs in the mail, I go through them and rip out pages with items I'd like to purchase for myself or others. This is very handy in the holiday season because I can whip through Christmas shopping in a couple hours. Not so handy when I look at what I'd like to buy for myself.

Last week, I decided to go ahead and order those cross-stitch kits (numerous) I'd been coveting, as well as more sizes of double-pointed needles, an afghan kit, some sock patterns, a nifty gadget to hold and amplify patterns, and cotton yarn that was on sale. There may be a couple items I've forgotten about, but this is the gist of the situation. I'm very excited to see all of them.

These purchases don't help with my lack of organization in the second bedroom, my increasing, not decreasing stash, or the fact that I will want to start every one of these projects as soon as I see them even though there are already other things I need to do first.

As with books, I'll say that I'm stocking up for the future. If anything ever goes wrong, everyone is invited over to my house for safety -- we can read, complete numerous craft projects, eat meat, and I'm sure I could scrounge up some pasta and veggies to round out the situation.