Would you believe what the last four weeks have been like, yikes! Being on warfarin, I normally go to a clinic and had a monthly blood draw done to test my blood for relative "thinness." My cardiologist wants me to be within a certain range, and typically I am in that range. But when the weather changes, if my diet changes even a little bit, if I have an extra glass of wine or two during the holidays, and even when I lose weight, all of a sudden my numbers get all out of whack and the doctor starts having seizures. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.
The upshot is that during a nasty cold Cold COLD streak for this time of year I've had to make weekly trips to the lab for six - SIX - weeks in a row because my numbers have become a bit wonky and everybody seems to think I'm in the process of dying or something. Believe me, folks, I'm not. I know this is a result of the weather drastically changing without my body having time to adjust adequately, in combination with having somehow managed to misplace 20 pounds during the summer and so far through today, hooray! I am SO proud of myself! But there's no pleasing my cardiologist, who WANTED ME TO LOSE SOME WEIGHT. And so did I, truth be told. It's bad enough looking saggy, but when you look baggy too (as in carrying excessive fat baggy), it's time to do something about it. I changed my diet (another big "upsetter" to the warfarin regime I'm on) and increased my physical activity (ditto), and the scale isn't lying. I've done this over a good 7 months or so - nice and slow. And each couple of pounds I lost gave me an extra boost to do even better, so really watch my calorie intake and keep upping physical activities just by doing a few more of everything - walking more often, getting outside for at least half an hour daily, no matter how damn cold it is out there (I HATE COLD, did I mention that?)
Enough. The Christmas decorating has been done for awhile, sort of. I am constantly tweaking. Lots of photos.
A new Christmas tree this year. The old much loved one finally just lost too many of the pre-wrapped lights and the old style PVC branches were showing wear and tear after 12 seasons of use. I also wanted to get a smaller tree in the hope that it would be lighter and easier to carry up and down the basement stairs each season. I don't remember where I ordered the tree from, or what I paid for it either. Me bad! It's only about 5 feet tall from tip to the bottom of the stand, and came in 2 parts plus the stand. But it's heavy! That's what I don't understand. It feels like this tree weighs as much as the 6 1/2 footer I reluctantly put into the trash earlier this year! Or else I'm just getting weaker and weaker every year. Geez.
What I like about it is the full shape - you'll see after I've fluffed it up a bit. It also has tips that are made of PE in a style that mimics the natural shape of pine trees, unlike PVC branches. It's a mix - PVC stems about 3/4ths of the way up each branch and then the PE natural appearing tips at the ends of each branch. They don't crush and they won't get flattened out like PVC branches tend to do after awhile.
There she is after I worked to fluff out each and every single tip, stem and branch per instructions, starting from the bottom up to the top. I should have spent more time shaping the bottom of the tree. That became evident after I'd finished decorating the tree, and was not happy at all with how the bottom portion of the tree looked!
The tree is set on top of a table to elevate it enough to show in the front picture window! FYI, I jerry-rigged my 18" tall small table that I use to hold glasses when I'm in the living room since I removed the coffee table. I use the round ottoman all the time to elevate my feet and legs (which otherwise have a tendency to swell by the end of the day) so using a tray on top of it looks pretty but isn't very practical when I'm actually using the room! Anyway, the table top is only about 13" in diameter, not large enough to hold the tree stand. So, I added a 24" round pressed board table top that I had stashed in the garage. It's unfinished and meant to be covered with a full length cloth, which is what I did after centering it on top of the tiny table. I wasn't sure the arrangement would hold the tree, but it did. (More about that later).
This was the first attempt at decorating. I'd intended to do a "red" traditional tree this year similar to what I did last year because I liked it so much, but noooooooo - I swear the ornaments went on strike and said we're going pearl, white, silver and gold. And that's exactly what they did. Do you think it means I'm psychotic when I let Christmas tree ornaments talk me into doing something I didn't intend to do???
As is my modus operandi, I am a firm believer in more is better when decorating a Christmas tree. I threw on more and more and then even more ornaments, jewelry from my jewelry box and gew gaws all over the tree until I was satisfied that it was suffering from excessive weight and indigestion. Then I added my three little chrome colored reindeer around the table at the bottom of the tree. Next year I will add more lights, at least 2 more strings (there are 4 on the tree now, 1 100-bulb string and 3 60-bulb strings, all "warm white" LED lights so it only costs me about 3 cents an hour in energy to have my tree lit. Love it! (The curtains were later pulled back a bit more so more of the tree could be seen from the sidewalk and the street).
Okay, you may have noticed in the photo above that there's an awful lot of stuff hanging around the bottom of the tree (I added even more and changed it around later on, but I haven't taken photos of it). The reason I did this is because when I'm sitting on the sofa looking at the tree, it looked absolute too BARE on the bottom - like there was a branch or two missing and too many blank spots between the bottom of the tree and where the stand hits the table. Unfortunately, the angle at which I took this photo exaggerates what looks like an over-abundance of stuff dangling from the bottom of the tree, LOL! Well, there is a lot of stuff there, no denying that. But it doesn't look like a capsized Titantic in the actual room/live view!
Close-ups:
Sentimental pieces received from Mr. Don prior to his passing in 2012: The Nefertiti pin represents me (well of course I'm a Queen!), and the kilt pin is a souvenir from the McClean clan castle (Castle Duart) in Scotland. We have been on the tree together each year since I received these from Mr. Don.
Can you tell I love pearls? The strand of twined up pearls are heavy glass covered with nacre finish - very heavy. They don't make artificial pearls like that any longer, it seems; now they are all made of light-weight plastic. I have a similar but smaller strand on the other side of the tree. These are straight out of my jewelry box. Complimenting the pearls are wedding picks (ordered in bulk on line some years ago) with white silk cala lily flowers, dark green silk leaves, organza ribbons and small "stems" with faux pearls. There is also pearl garland on thin silver colored wire wrapped around the tree.
More evidence of having raided my jewelry box. The string of clear glass beads and pearls is a necklace I bought in Las Vegas one year when Mr. Don and I were there visiting friends. The large beaded necklace directly in front was my Mom's. Can you tell I love glitter, glow, gold and glam?
Above is the bracelet from mom's beaded set.
The ornaments show to best advantage in the sunshine! Do you see the beaded bracelet adorning a branch? That's another Las Vegas special - I got three of them for $10 at one of those little jewelry stands at the Excalibur one year.
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