9 Feet

9 feet is what you get when your 7 foot Christmas tree is not tall enough.

We moved into the house on New Years eve. So we missed Christmas here, and the next year, we had a ball buying all new Christmas decorations. We had to, since we seemed to have lost all the stuff each of us had on our own. I have no idea where it went, we just manage to lose it all in the kabillion moves that each of us made. So we bought a 7' tree. Butch immediately said it wasn't big enough with the cathedral ceiling and went and built a box to sit it on and make it taller. Still not tall enough. But do you have any idea how much a 9' tree costs??? No way Jose. Well, last year, towards the end of January one of the guys he works with told us about the sale Wally's was having on all their left overs and that he had seen 9 footers there. Needless to say, he had me packed up and busting up the road. We got a $300 tree for $50 bucks. Happy Butch. Until we tried to move the damn thing. But we got it down in the basement (no way it was fitting up in the attic), and forgot about it until now. This tree is in 5 separate heavy pieces. It has like, I don't even know how many points on it, but I had to separate all of them. Took me most of the stupid Steeler vs Patriots game. OH, and one armed too as my damn shoulder is still hurt enough that I'm doing most everything one handed. Jeez, I'm an idiot-just call me Dr Kimble!

No decorations on it yet, but that will be for tomorrow night. I've got some running around to do tomorrow and I can't get the boxes down from the attic. Gotta wait on Butch for that....and he has to work tomorrow. Unlike me, I'm forced to take the first two days of deer season, instead of time between Christmas and New Year. Whoops, wandering just slightly off subject.
So here is the naked tree~as you can see, the 9 feet comes to the low section of the ceiling and really does look much better. I'm telling everyone coming to our house over the holiday to bring an ornament, since it's going to take a lot more than what we have at this point. Just a minor point, and we even bought a bunch more when we bought the tree.

Orchard

Last Saturday, I needed to go buy some honey at one of the orchards nearby. It's always best when it comes right from the bee. This honey always has a wonderful apple flavor to it, (d'oh, I wonder why it tastes like that) and is really tasty. I only went for honey, but ended up spending 50 bucks. Since we didn't get to the apple harvest festival this year, I needed some baking apples, so I got a 1/2 bushel of Staymans. They also have homemade pie fillings there too. Hey, when I say it is homemade, it doesn't necessarily mean the homemade was in my kitchen! I've been buying quarts of honey and the price went from $9.oo to $12.oo the last time I got a bottle. I've been thinking about it, and I decided to take the plunge and buy a gallon. Which actually is a better bargain, cause it is only $25.00, so really I got it at half the price. Honey doesn't go bad and I know that sooner more so than later, it will all be used up. The best part was butch trying to pour out of a gallon jar with a wide mouth on it. I just wish someone I knew-who loved honey in his tea way more than I do, would let me buy him a queen bee, so he could start his hives again!

So, this is some of what I came home with, and below is the RUM/apple pie some of it became. yum.

Zippers

Last summer, butch told me I had a big freckle on my back, I didn't think anything of it. It was between my shoulder blades and I couldn't really see what it was. Not long after that, Connie from PC was up staying with us and saw it. She recommended that I have it checked out asap. I actually listened went to the gp. He biopsied it, and it was what he thought, which was basal cell carcinoma. Skin cancer. I know that pretty much everyone there on told me how lucky I was that if you had to have this happen, this was the best that you could hope to have. So I schedule the appointment with the plastic surgeon. That takes 2.5 months and he looks at it and says yep, that's what it looks like, we'll schedule you for some in house surgery (a month later).

He also bitched to me about staying out of the sun. I told him that I had been a water rat as a kid, and a swim coach, and a lifeguard for 11 years. This was all before the invention of sunscreen. I am now careful not to get burned like I used to do. I'm the one with the spf 30 fussing over everyone. I love the beach, butch and I are sandcrabs. It used to be when I went to the beach only old people and babies sat under umbrellas, and that I guess I'm one of them now, cause for years, I've always carried one down to the sand. (umbrella that is, not babies or an old person) When I told the Dr this his suggestion was that maybe I just needed to wear more clothes at the beach. riiiight.

So I went in last Thursday and he cut up my back to the tune of half a dozen or so stitches inside and 19 staples outside. Butch laughed and said it looked like I had a zipper right up the middle of my back, and it did. The Dr even made the same comment last night when they started taking some of them out. He left 6 in still and I have to go back on Tuesday to get them out.

Here's a picture, black and white to help with the ewwwww factor.