Today is definitely chillier than the last few days, but it’s sunny so I’ll take that and be glad. Gracie and I will be hitting the dump today, her favorite stop of all. It even beats Agway where she gets to shop with me and have a few treats.

My house still needs to be decorated, but I have a Christmas timetable starting tonight with the cards. My second box of cards arrived a couple of days ago so no more excuses. After that I need to buy the tree and then decorate the house. I’m thinking a smaller tree this year, maybe even a couple of small trees. That’s on tap for the weekend.

The Tale of a Mouse is the name of this paragraph. Those of you who are a bit squeamish should move on. For the rest of you, this mouse tale starts a couple of weeks ago when I went down to the cellar to do laundry. The cellar, particularly near the washer, smelled disgusting, and I know a dead something was somewhere down there. I went looking and found nothing. Over time the smell weakened, and I stopped hunting. On Tuesday I decided to bring up all the gifts from downstairs in preparation for wrapping. I grabbed my large plastic tub to fill with the gifts so I would only have to make a single trip. Yup, you guessed it. The mouse had been trapped in the tub where it met its demise. It was disgusting. I opened the cellar door and tossed the remains outside then scrubbed that tub. The results remain: tub -1, mice-0

I know they are perfectly ugly, but I have always wanted a tall aluminum tree with a color wheel. It would never be my only Christmas tree. Nope, my tree has to be real, one that fills the house with the smell of Christmas, but there is something about an aluminum tree which has always attracted me. I just can’t explain it. My sister gave me a small one last year, but it is too small for a color wheel. I didn’t decorate it last year as I didn’t open it until Christmas Day, but this year I’m putting red ornaments on it. I think aluminum and red are a great match. This small one will satisfy me for the meantime, but I’m still on the look-out for its bigger, uglier brother.