Just because I'm getting stir-crazy doesn't mean it's a good idea to be out in the cold night air. At least, that was my excuse last night. I'd started the day with every intention of seeing a movie, after two days when my cold seemed to be getting better at last.

The Rialto is showing several movies I want to see. Quills. O Brother, Where Art Thou? State and Main. They're still showing You Can Count on Me, which I wouldn't mind seeing again.

But I didn't sleep well the night before. I stayed up too late finishing the last few chapters of Emily's Quest. The last of L.M. Montgomery's Emily books. I guess I'll have to go back to Anne.

By late afternoon I was feeling the lack of sleep, and the ever-present dribbling snuffles are still hanging on, even if my throat isn't sore any more, so I decided to stay home and work. The more I get done now, the better off I'll be at the end of the month. Since I'm stuck inside anyway, I might as well make good use of my time.

My buying habits are under control, now that I'm not buying anything. I'm holding fast to my resolution, but not without severe withdrawal pains. I eased the transition a bit with a frenzy of last-minute online shopping.

I spent the last half hour of New Year's Eve ordering books and CDs, and some of them arrived yesterday. The UPS guy somehow made it all the way down the driveway and found my door. The books included A Solitary Blue, by Cynthia Voigt, the next one I wanted to read in the Tillerman series.

The CDs were the result of a sudden, dramatic, inspired realization that there was some music I'd been planning to get for months and never got around to it. Two each by Van Morrison, Dar Williams and Randy Newman. I wish I'd thought to throw in the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, but I didn't think of it in time, and now it's too late.

Or is it? I'm not breaking my promise not to buy any this year, exactly, but the mail included a notice from a record club, with a card that said I would receive the latest release by Fuel if I didn't return it. I looked at the account number and didn't recognize it.

Then I remembered, and my heart sank. A couple of months ago, I had a call from the club, with an irresistible offer. They wanted to send me twelve free CDs if I'd agree to buy four more over the next two years, and they would send me one free one just for thinking about it.

Too good to be true? You bet. I got the free CD in December and promptly forgot whatever I was supposed to do to terminate the membership. (This is typical, by the way. I need a keeper.)

My choices are to send the card back and tell them I want to cancel the whole deal, or order the eleven remaining freebies and keep the membership open, without buying anything new until next year. That's sticking to the resolution, right? And I still get to pick out some new music (if that offer isn't too late).

I probably should box up the introductory materials and mail all of it back, especially if I can't find eleven CDs that I want in their catalog. I just have this scary feeling that I screwed myself out of the eleven by waiting too long, and I'm still stuck with buying four more.

On top of that, it feels unclean somehow to be looking through the catalog picking out what I want, after I made such a big deal about giving up buying new stuff. Is it a betrayal? After all, I'm not spending any money here. I never resolved not to accept gifts.

The point of all this is that I should never agree to anything over the phone. I've told myself this over and over, but sometimes, just to get rid of a persistent telemarketer, I'll say yes. Usually it's to something I know won't obligate me to spend any money, but that almost always depends on my taking some kind of action before a particular deadline.

I should know myself well enough to realize that I'm likely to miss the deadline. It's happened before, and if I swear it'll never happen again, I'll probably end up wrong. Again.

Audubon update: My field guide does indeed have a picture of what I thought until yesterday was a peacock. Because it's not a peacock. It's a ring-tailed pheasant. I finally got a good look at it when it came into the yard just beyond the garden. It looks exactly like the picture in the guide, and the description is exactly what I saw: bright green head, red eye-patch, white ring around the neck, reddish brown body, "bigger than a chicken." (No topknot; apparently that was an optical illusion.)

Horticultural update:

Is this what an amaryllis is supposed to look like?