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identify an area or two in my life that I need to work on, and I attempt to do so, with varying degrees of success. This year, my "areas that need improvement" are my weight and my spending habits. I'm not afraid to name numbers...I've been overweight all my life, and most of my adult life, I've been in the 205-210 lb. range. In my early 20s, I dropped down to 192 (the lightest I've been as an adult), and one summer a couple decades ago, I got serious about walking/biking and not eating snacks late at night and got down to 194. After I started working at my last job, between the constant motion, the lack of a/c and a well-timed gallbladder attack, I dropped 25 pounds, going from a lifetime high of 217 (thanks to the pandemic) down to 192 in roughly four months. Unfortunately, since quitting my job last April, the weight's been creeping up again. I'm back to 210 and am determined to be 20 pounds lighter by May 1. But first I need to get rid of all the holiday sweets and high calorie food in the house...SO. Much. Chocolate!

As for my spending habits, well, it's no secret here or IRL that I like to shop. Many people profess to hate it, and I feel somehow uncool for enjoying strolling through stores and buying myself things but there it is. Now I'm cheap to the core so I doubt I'll ever spend till I'm broke. I don't splurge (not counting vacations and a VERY occasional--like, once every few years--special meal) but I always say I will $5 and $10 myself right into the proverbial "poor house". I'm always worse at Christmas, thanks to a) being in stores more while I shop for others (shopping online only works to a degree for me; it's good for when I know what I want to get but a lot of my ideas come from wandering through a brick and mortar) and b) being almost unable to resist the trappings of Christmas. Wrapping paper! Bags! Bows! Decorations! Edible items only available at Christmas! And then there's the sales, and when you have a credit card you can put purchases on, well, practically every year, my VISA bill in December and January is a jaw-dropper. I was a *bit* better this Christmas thanks to having less people to buy for but I also picked up a couple hobbies last year--pour painting and making bracelets from rolled paper beads--and have been making way too many purchases at Michael's and JoAnn Fabrics. So I want to scale (way) back on that kind of impulse buying this year and have begun by promising myself I wouldn't spend a dime the first week of the new year. So far, so good...although I had to pick up a prescription today (my BP medicine doesn't count, of course--that's a necessity) and walking through Walmart to get to the pharmacy, I saw a number of things that I wanted.

On only a semi-related note, I also made a trip to Ulta to return a product. Thank goodness they allow you to return something you've opened; I bought a bottle of Derm-E thickening conditioner for my hair and used it once. And...nope. First of all, it said there was mint in the conditioner, which isn't surprising because lots of times when a body part needs "reviving" or "refreshing", there's mint in the product (it's difficult to find a foot lotion without peppermint). But the mint was so strong, it made my eyes water and my scalp burn. I don't like the smell of peppermint to begin with and this was overwhelming. Second, the bottle was made of extremely thick plastic, and the conditioner was also really thick...it was near impossible to squeeze the conditioner out of the bottle because the bottle didn't squeeze. Third, and most important, the conditioner didn't do squat for my hair. I realize it was only one application but I've had other products that worked instantly so back to Ulta this one went. What I found interesting, and annoying, but not necessarily wrong...I'd bought the conditioner along with 4 other items and used my "get $5 off a $10 purchase" coupon. So of COURSE when I returned the conditioner, instead of giving me the full price back ($12.50), they applied the "$5 off a $10 purchase" coupon and only credited my VISA $7.50, plus tax. I would've completely expected that had I only bought the conditioner but since I'd bought a handful of other products that qualified for the discount, I...don't know why I was expecting I'd get the full amount for the conditioner back.