My bologna has a first name.

Things are mostly back to normal around here (although now Brad is sick *cough cough*), so we finally dug out the Christmas stuff last night -- HOOOOORAY! My spirits were only slightly dampened upon discovering some mices had used one of my (CLOSED!) boxes as their own personal toilet (we retaliated by putting down all the traps Brad's mom got us, and we already caught our first guy [luckily, it's a live trap and we released him but I still feel bad, BUT he was asking for it!]). We take our ornaments down every year, but otherwise we store the tree in the basement, assembled and with the lights on it. So downstairs Brad trudged to get it, and we mostly got it upstairs in one piece.

Started out innocently enough...

Then Brad decided the tree needed to be taken apart and refluffed and the lights untangled and rehung. What a mess!

Of course, then we also discovered the majority of our lights were now burnt out. The dogs kept their distance.

But Heidi can never resist getting into things for too long.

Eventually the tree was in one piece, we'd found enough lights that worked -- but by that point, I was tired from watching Brad struggle with the tree, so we decided to wait on the ornaments (still waiting...) and sit down and relax with some hot and toasty beverages.

Today I hit Joann with Kristal, and my I was reminded of my love for Xmas decorations... and how little I actually have, despite constantly collecting stuff. Luckily, all the Xmas stuff was 50% off, so I was able to satiate my itch with a few cheap items (we're talking $0.29!). I like cheap and shiny new things, especially when they make friends with my old Xmas goodies.

The door to Xmas?

Officially a fan of shiny red garland.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Pink lady apples, you tempted me with your cute name, but I will not let you trick anyone else I know! Warning: These apples are terrible! They are tough, chewy, and weirdly tart. Don't do it! I don't want to waste them, so I will use them as dog treats and/or will bake them to see if they taste ok as a dessert.

Today at Meijer, I bought some replacement apples (phew) and finally decided to try my first "fake" meat product. What better to start with than... bologna!

It was ok. It smelt of pepperoni, actually, and didn't have much taste. And with the spicy mustard I really couldn't taste it in the sandwich. But I figure it's some protein, or something, right?

Oh, and Heidi is up to her old tricks again.