Decoration Failure

The 99 cent price for the e-book of Enchanted, Inc. has now made it into the system. I would guess that if you're reading this, you've probably already read it, but in case you wanted a chance to encourage someone else to try it or in case you now have a tablet or e-reader and wanted to get a cheap copy to have with you at all times, it's there until the day after Christmas. We've also matched that price for the non-North American English e-book edition, so anyone in the world who reads English can get the same price (subject to local taxes, fees, etc.).

I made it through my crazy weekend of parties and choir events. Now I'm rather dead tired. But my shopping is done, most of the obligations other than one choir rehearsal and Christmas Eve services are done, and I can do the fun stuff. I did have a bit of decor failure, though. When I got my second apartment out of college, it had a fireplace, so for Christmas I wrapped some pine-ish garland in little white lights and a long strand of pearl-like beads to put on the mantel. This garland moved with me to the next apartment and to the current house. The current mantel is really narrow and doesn't have a projecting shelf, and it's really long, so instead of draping, I just put the garland on top of the mantel until I got the clever idea of getting some of those Command hooks with the temporary adhesive and hanging it that way, which worked. Until this year. The adhesive failed on a couple of hooks, and the garland came crashing down, but I was out of adhesive strips, so I took it all down until I got more and put the hooks back up. Then the lights didn't work when I plugged them back in. I found another set of lights on the old little Christmas tree I'm not using this year. They didn't work. I took a set of lights that I'd had hanging in my office. They were dead. And to top it all off, the new adhesive failed and the garland without lights came crashing down. So for the first time since I've had a fireplace, there will be no garland on it this year. I just have a row of the frosted glass globes from the old ceiling fan with electric tealights inside. I don't want to buy new lights since I'm planning on this being my last Christmas in this house and I don't know what the new setup will be. I might want to get wild and crazy and change my decor. Although all of these lights were pretty old, it was getting weird that every single strand has failed. I took it as a sign. And, yes, the outlet does work. Other things plugged into that outlet work, and the lights don't work when plugged into other outlets. I've also gone down the strand, making sure each bulb was fully inserted and that none of them had come loose.

So, now that the busy is over, I need to get my house in some kind of order (my kitchen looks like a war zone after weekend baking), do some writing, start doing some more work toward preparing to put the house on the market, and make time to let myself enjoy the holiday season. One thing I've noticed that I seem to have stockpiled is bath-type products -- I get gels, lotions, scrubs, etc., as gifts, when I stay at hotels and when I need a little pick-me-up (when I had no money, a sample size toiletry item was my chosen form of cheap self indulgence). And then I barely use them or think I'll save them for a special occasion that never comes. So I may give myself an epic spa week to help clear out the bathroom cabinets.