Iron Man and Christmas Trees

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It’s safe to say we are quite settled into the house now, evidenced by the mere 2-3 boxes left in the dining room — versus the 20-30 — to unpack/put away/give away. The Christmas tree just went up, marking the (late) beginning of the end of what was an amazing year.

The 15-yr-old artificial will serve us yet another year, thanks to modification. Since a 10-ft tree won’t fit in a living room with a new 9-ft ceiling (it used to be vaulted), a crafty husband and a hacksaw was called in to duty.

There is still no sign of shelves for the butler’s pantry, so out the stemware sits, pulled from boxes, unwrapped, cleaned, moved from the dining table a second time to make room for dinner. It’s that kind of shifting of things that is about to drive me bonkers.

Note to self: I shoulda’ just left it all in the box.

Good news?  Counter tops (3rd install) are finally complete and the windows/bricking (3rd install) is just about done, with only a bit of indoor drywall repair left to have done, perhaps even before the holidays.

Bad news? The kitchen island still needs to be refinished. I’m not looking forward to being without a kitchen again for a few days. And paint fumes certainly are not my favorite. No one will be more glad than me when this project officially comes to a close.

In the meantime, I’ve lost my git-up-n-git to do anything save daily maintenance items. Yes, the toilets are getting cleaned and laundry done, but the lights outside are just not gonna happen this year. I just can’t. Do. Another. Thing. I hated breaking the news of that to the kids; the house being all lit up for the month of December is their favorite part of the holiday season.

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The garden is officially shut down for the season with a few plants continue growing without me:

• Romaine lettuce
• Rosemary
• Red cabbage
• Brussels sprouts

Any clean-up and soil amendments will have to wait until February. Temps are settling into the 40’s now, and I don’t work outside if I can’t wear flip-flops, a bikini top, and shorts. We still have the mulching to look forward to as well. Since a dump truck delivers the goods, it had to be put off until the brick pile in the driveway was removed — and that only happened a day after Thanksgiving.  Next weekend, we’ll knock out that glorious chore.

I came across this gem of a pile (photo below), but not having any energy, failed to load it into the van.  It’s not because I didn’t want to; bad habits are hard to break.

So I took a picture and waved farewell instead.

Buh bye, sweet worm food.

John’s first year of schooling on-line is going great. He’s carrying all A’s with a B in science certain to come up by the end of the session. He’s feeling quite proud of himself (he should be!) and I’m feeling more capable of running an on-line school at home for four next year.

Though much of his doodling time has been traded for required assignments and labs, he still gets to scratch his drawing itch every once-in-a-while for an art portfolio. He didn’t have to work too hard for this color-and-shading assignment.

Of course, as a doting mother, I’m required to share such raw talent. He whipped this out in 20 minutes.

Hey Iron Man, would you mind putting up the outdoor lights for me? Pretty please?

♦

We are gearing up for a slow down for the holidays!

What’s happening in your neck of the woods?