I love how the Feds are going around saying, LOOKS LIKE THE END OF THE RECESSION IS NEAR, EVERYBODY!!! GET OUT YOUR CHECKBOOKS!!! but from where I’m sitting, I’d say the recession is just getting comfortable.

Yep, the recession is just hunkering down in my humble abode. It’s like a house guest who takes awhile to loosen up but once he does, he eats all your food, uses your toilet, leaves the seat up, then asks if he can borrow your sweat pants because your house is really cold and…..are you going to eat that?

I don’t think the recession is going anywhere soon. At least not for this hapless writer who left the comfort and security of a job with benefits in the city for a stab at the “good life” IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS???!?! (Em, isn’t it always kind of a recession when one lives in the woods?)

This topic has been on my mind lately because winter is coming, and the words “winter” and “recession” just seem to go together like two homeless people huddled in a bus kiosk. I have a feeling this might just be the longest winter in history.

I suppose I’m grouchy because it’s ALREADY freezing and my winter clothes have seemingly evaporated.  When I first moved here, I had all sorts of snug, nifty sweaters, chic jackets, trendy hats and boots with heels. I don’t know what happened to these stylish clothes, I think they have receded to the furthest corners of my closet from lack of wear. But as winter once again approaches I find I’m faced with appalling sartorial choices.

Let’s see, this morning do I wear my 1989 fleece sweat pants with Uggs I’ve had so long they’re sort of always wet inside OR a fetching banana yellow sweatsuit pawned off on me by an older acquaintance that looks like what a passenger aboard the Love Boat might have worn to ride the stationary bicycle in the exercise closet back in 1983?

I just couldn’t decide so I put them together. Today, I am a middle-age shuffleboard player on top, crazy stick-whittling she-bear on bottom.

How is it that at my age I don’t have money to go buy a few new clothes?  There is something wrong with this picture.  And there is something seriously messed up with this outfit.

It's come to this

I went grocery shopping, and this box of cereal caught my eye: Honey Nut Spins. It’s part of Walmart’s “Great Value” brand, and a steal at $1.98.  Something about the name made me laugh.  What’s a Spin?  How does a “Spin” parallel Honey Nut “Cheerios”—which it clearly aims to imitate?  Does it mean the bee will “spin” the tube of honey-nut goodness around his waist like a hula hoop? Or will I “spin-out” after eating them? Who is responsible for this? I had to have it.

Later that night, Jake came into the kitchen and chuckled. I didn’t even have to see what he was looking at to know.  ”So it’s come to this,” he says. “Honey Nut ‘Spins.’ We can no longer afford Honey Nut Cheerios?”

Oh no, we can afford Cheerios, baby.  We’re so not like poor people.