On the sewing front: Doll clothes in the works for a Christmas present. These will be for a niece. Pictures to come when I get something finished.
Got our tree up today. I started Sunday trying to get that accomplished. Got furniture rearranged so there was room for it. Decided we really need to get rid of some stuff, read as furniture. Then Monday we drug the boxes up from the basement. Unboxed the tree and put it together. It is a pre-lit one that comes in three parts. Stack the parts plug the lights in and there ya go - instant tree. Only this year it didn't quite work out that easy. The middle section didn't completely light up. So hubby made a trip to town to get a string of lights to replace the one string that wasn't working. Now if you have never de-frocked a tree of it's lights ha! I decided that the tree had two people working on it to string those lights. There must have been some minimal requirements for those workers, one had to be left handed while the other had to be right handed. The lights are wrapped around the branches some going clockwise while others went counter clockwise. And to top it all off everyone knows what a string of lights looks like. Right. One long "string" with a plug at one end and a receptacle at the other. Well not these. Each string consisted of two loops with the plug and the receptacle being at the same end. Talk about a nightmare. Hubby couldn't find a string of lights in town to match what were on the tree so then we sat and stared at an unlit, prelit tree. So what to do. At that point I would have gladly donated or trashed the tree and done without. Hubby, on the other hand, decides to start looking for a new tree. Well there are a few requirement. He still want pre-lit, I want skinny so it doesn't take up much space. We both want green and fairly realistic looking. Our house is a bit odd in that it doesn't have normal height ceilings. They are only about 7 feet 4 inches. So the height has to be limited to 7 feet or under. And it has to fit in our budget. Ha, what budget? Nothing on line. The 5th day of December and the stores are sold out?!?!?!?! So yesterday we headed to town early. Spent the entire day doing a few odd things and looking at trees. Too tall, too fat, no lights, wrong color, too many $$$ signs. So we decided to buy more lights and take off the all the lights and string our own. Well there weren't enough of one type of light like we like. What is the world coming to? We had 4 boxes of clear lights at home but wanted colors. Nope, nada, not happening. At this point I am getting beyond frustrated. Just do without a tree this year and start again next year. Well we ended up deciding to go with the clear lights. So this morning I took the rest of the lights off the tree, opened up box number one of clear lights. Plugged them and and YES! they all lit up so I strung them around the bottom of the tree. Then the second box. and then the third box. Whoops, only half the string lit up. So I opened the last box, only half of it lit up. So I spent what seemed like forever testing the bulbs to see which one of those little suckers was keeping my lights from sparkling. Could not figure it out so..... Hubby says he'll go to town to get another string and I tell him No he won't I'll figure something out. I ended up folding up all the unlit bulbs into a "wad" and tucking the into the tree way deep and in the back where they will never be seen. Strung the rest of them on the last third of the tree. Yes! It is lit. It is now decorated with all the decorations the beads are draped and the skirt is placed underneath it not so neatly. Tomorrow I'm wrapping gifts and will get them under the tree and then hopefully it will feel like the Christmas spirit has come back.
A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Sir Alec Issigonis
