Insert clever title here.

Well, I was in a cranky mood yesterday, wasn't I? I'll try to be nice today and spare you the rant on horrible Christmas music I was composing earlier today in a store which shall not be named. (Let's just say that if that was indeed Aretha Franklin, then she needs to retire. Now.)

Speaking of Christmas, I actually used a new scrapbook line right away, and not two years after it comes out, after everyone else has seen it eleventy-billion times, which is my typical creative arc. This is Basic Grey Wassail, for those to whom that means something:


I got it all scanned and stitched (yes, I scanned! I stitched! And it worked!) and then realized I forgot to put on the journaling. So there's a little sticker with journaling attached over the three small squares. These "home decor" pictures are so pathetic, I thought I should really snazz up the page...the whole lipstick on a pig thing, which has far more uses than merely in American politics.

See, almost every year, we go out of town for Christmas, and last year we were seriously gone for three weeks, so this is the only decorating we did--a few bows on the windows and a swag and wreath by the door. No tree, no nuthin'. And I suspect this year will be just as bad. I know someday I'll look back from the old folks' home and long for the exciting holidays when we traveled all over creation and never got to have Christmas in our own home with family visiting us for once...but till then, let me hold my seasonal grudge!

We went out to get Halloween candy last night and I jokingly told Todd that we had to go, before all that was left was Bit O'Honeys. Does anybody really like Bit O'Honeys? Or those caramel things with the "creamy" white centers that were actually flaky and gross? We got Tootsie Roll pops--delicious, but not pig-out-able in case there are any left over that we have to dispose of. You can't really pig out on lollipops.

I am holding out on turning the heat on...shivering in bed at night, sticking my hands in my armpits and holding them under hot water, layering on the clothes. I have no compunction in turning on the air conditioning as soon as the temps go over 80, but when it comes to heat I decide to get frugal. I figure I have to be frugal to make up for the wild, abandoned a/c use from May to September.

The nice thing about the early cold weather is that the trees are turning earlier, too, and drives around town have become opportunities to enjoy lone beauties here and there among the strip malls. Makes the time at red lights pass faster! The tree in our side yard (it's not an oak, it's not a maple, and there my knowledge stops) is just starting to turn burgundy and I can see the leaves against the blue sky from my desk--so gorgeous.

You know, I spent the whole fall of 1985 collecting, identifying and pasting leaves into a huge collection for tenth grade biology, and what was the use? I suspect if I had kids, I'd have a very hard time enforcing the homework rules, knowing how little I remember of anything I learned from K-12. My brain is the kind that latches onto random, useless facts and completely ignores vast patches of the kind of knowledge school is made to impart, like quadratic equations and what rocks are made of.

It was a peaceful way to spend the evenings after school, though--I had a table set up in the room off our garage, and I'd go out every night and paste leaves to big sheets of cardstock with rubber cement. The pressed leaves all smelled like tea, kind of sweet and mossy. My mom finally got me to take the leaf collection back with me when I was home in July (after about 15 requests) and now it lives under our bed. I just can't throw away all that hard work, even though the rubber cement has probably completely disintegrated the leaves by now.

I guess I should pull it out and find out what the tree in the side yard is.