Author: Stacy Horn

I couldn’t resist trying again to capture the prettiness of these bulbs.  Oh well.

So yeah, I haven’t been to the gym in many days.  I have to go.  Have to. Then I get to laze about all day.  
One big cleaning job I had planned to do I’m putting off. I’m storing all this stuff, my research from each of my books, tax records for myself and Echo, etc.  I hate clutter.  I was going to go through and see if there is anything at all I can throw-out.

Then I realized if I wait until my Spring cleaning I can at least throw out one tax years worth of records. Except I will also be adding one!! Oh for the love of God. I’m sorry future firemen who will have to tunnel through the boxes in order to remove my mummified remains.

This is called “Collyer conditions” by the FDNY by the way, in honor of the Collyer Brothers, two brothers in Manhattan who couldn’t throw anything away, and it eventually killed them. It’s a fascinating story and worth reading.  One brother died when boxes fell on him while he was on his way to feeding his paralyzed brother.  The paralyzed brother then starved to death.  Rescue workers had to tunnel through piles of newspapers, etc., and they found one brother, but then it took days (weeks?) to find the other.

For someone who went to art school (my undergraduate degree is a BFA) I have little decorative flair. But here are my attempts at holiday decorations.  This is that top shelf that temporarily held the plants.

I considered getting a tree.  There’s even a spot for it now that I had to get rid of my beloved ficus.  And I thought, ‘The cats are what?  Seven and eight years old?  They’re not kittens anymore.  Maybe they won’t have to climb the tree and break every last bulb.  Maybe?  Right??’  Yeah, no tree.

So more bulbs to put around the apartment. I don’t think this shot is capturing the color and prettiness of these bulbs. Maybe I’ll try again. Below are the lights that I strung on my amoire instead of a tree.

And man are we tired. But all the big jobs are out of the way, and today is mostly fun stuff.

The one job I’m looking forward to is organizing my photographs.  I’m not going to do photo albums, that’s just too much work.  But I’m going to identify people, and maybe organize everything into envelops, ie, “9/11 friends,” “Echo friends,” “family,” and then put them all in one box. Right now they’re spread all over the place.

If I come across anything particularly good (or whatever) I will scan them and put them up.

Happy day!  I’ll probably have music on in the background, but I kinda wish there were holiday shows on tv to serve as background noise.

Here is a shot of the inside of my refrigerator, which is usually even emptier than this.  Notice the egg nog!  Aside from all the cheese and bread I consume, I’m a seriously healthy eater. Today I’ve got kale, carrots, broccoli, olive paste for broccoli dipping, cottage cheese for protein, and ground flax seed to mix with the vanilla soy milk (together it tastes like a milkshake).  The Half & Half (organic) for my coffee is another indulgence.

One of the things I’ll do when I’m finished cleaning is place a Fresh Direct order which will include pumpkin pie.  I may not have mentioned, but when I finish cleaning I give myself all sorts of rewards.

I did better this time, I was less nervous.  I slowed down, looked people in the eye more as I spoke.  So yeah.  Better.  I don’t suck completely today. (For those that don’t know, I recently starting volunteering as a tour guide for the Word Trade Center site.)  Here’s a picture of the site from within the Winter Garden.