Where's the Sun?

After three days spent hibernating at home avoiding the rain, 

the cold, and last minute Christmas shoppers I woke up with a 

definite case of cabin fever.  However, since it was still 

rainy and cold out and I in no way wanted to encounter

the hoards of after-Christmas bargain hunters I decided

to remain indoors again.

My first ploy against the gloomy day was to ensconce myself

on the sofa with hot tea, books, and the sketch pad.

However, after awhile I tired of reading and was ready 

for some watching.

So I resorted to Plan B:

a moody British mystery on Netflix and a cozy

gas log fire (the only kind of logs that I can keep burning).

Thanks to streaming technology I was able to queue up

a sufficiently moody Ruth Rendell mystery complete

with an overwrought Colin Firth portraying a strangely

 mad moor killer.

As only the British can do, they managed to drag this 

story on for three episodes.  With that much time on my 

hands and with such a slow moving plot I decided to get out 

the tax papers and get started on organizing them and

doing a financial snapshot by reviewing the past year's

credit card statements and the bank registers.

As always, it's a rather onerous task.

After spending all day yesterday with a calculator I decided this

morning to find an easy software solution to track my spending.  I've

tried Quicken and find that it's a real pain and overly complicated

for my needs.

Then, I happened on "the Birdy"

(www.thebirdy.com), a simple, free website service

that allows you to input your spending and will 

categorize and track it for you.  They will even send

you a daily email reminding you to input any purchases.

There's also the usual smartphone app so I can track my

spending on the go.

My New Year's toast:  to better habits and less spending.

Perhaps with less consuming I'll spend more time meditating.

Ommm . . . . . . . . .