New Lights and Little Giant

This is a totally boring post only loyal relatives and close friends would find interesting. I had a lovely day with productive and entertaining activities. No serious questions, no musing about life, no melancholy schmaltz. Just life and lights. And it was very good.

We were out very late Friday night with a group of friends. We made our annual jaunt to Rosebud Dinner Theatre in the booming metropolis - no, make that hamlet - of Rosebud, Alberta (pop. 80). We were able to all travel together in a mini-bus belonging to the school where two of our companions work. All 17 of us. The visiting on the way and back was lively, the dinner was sumptuous and the show was funny and touching. It was a delightful evening.

However, when A rolled me out to make his lunch at 6 a.m. so he could go skiing, I was less than enthusiastic. Thankfully, his buddy's mom was driving this time, so I could simply go back to sleep after he left. 

And sleep I did. It was afternoon before I opened my eyes again, when B prodded me to help hang outdoor Christmas lights. (And here I had been trying to see how much fuss I could avoid this year.) The thought of all those Christmas lights we have acquired, plus the memory of how beautiful they look, once hung, and the fact that I get to use the Little Giant ladder... well, that was finally enough to get me outside.  

We searched the boxes for the best and the brightest bulbs. Isn't it something how coloured lights can fade so quickly?  Red, yellow, blue, pink, green. Repeat. Test the string, replace the burned out bulbs. Repeat. Discover that some light clips go up and some go down. Note to self: make sure they all go up next year.

We chose the best strings and it only took four to go around the front of the house. The eavestrough was easily accessible (and far better quality than any we've ever dealt with in the past), the ladder was very stable and I only fought with a couple of spruce branches.  Then we packed up all the old lights to give to charity.

Final steps: hang a continuous blanket of our four mini-light nets on the back deck railing. This I got to do by myself as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped and my knight in shining decided he needed to polish his armour before our next task: looking for exterior carriage lights to replace the existing ones which, I discovered, were actually broken. While we could have limped by until spring, I managed to break one completely while examining it to determine if I could fix the problem.  Ooops.

Not to worry. We were going to replace them anyway.  We found suitable replacements at Home Depot and I get to use the Little Giant again.  And maybe some power tools.  Woohoo!

To top off the evening, I took my Knight out for dinner, compliments of my former colleagues. As my goodbye gift from them, they generously contributed to gift cards at my favorite restaurant - a place that delivers tastes and flavours you can't find anywhere else. The gift provided two very lovely steak dinners complete with wine and dessert. I am VERY okay with that.

Our next stop was at Restoration Hardware, a brand new upscale store near us. Unique to say the least. Never thought I'd be able to buy my new mail box right beside baby clothing and a USB turntable for converting LP albums to MP3s.

Now my Christmas wish list for my Knight is complete. No longer will his Christmas shopping feel like the search for the Holy Grail.  Just to clarify... I'm asking for the turntable, not the baby clothes.

Yes, it was a very good day.