Slavin' Away

Put up the christmas lights today. I must say it went much faster than last year, since the roof clips were already attached to the strands and they (the icicle strands) weren't as tangled up as last year. Jfer also installed the electric luminaires she bough three years ago. I kept humming "It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas" (as well as "I'm feeling Japanese" which has been stuck in my head ever since we saw Jack Ass). The tree should be up next weekend.

So while at Home Depot, getting stakes for Jfer's luminaires, I picked up and anchor kit for our shed and put in a special order for an attic for the shed. The attic should arrive at Home Depot in a couple of weeks but the anchors I had today. And since "installation is easy", after I was done with the lights I decided to instal the anchors. Although it doesn't sound that tough, it actually requires quite a bit of force to manually screw an auger three feet into the ground. I managed to get two of them that deep and the other two were stopped at about two feet depth by a root or rock or something. Hopefully they'll hold in a storm.

Tonight we're making our first batch of Christmas cookies. I have combined my mom's and my aunt's gingerbread recipes (my mom's got rum in it while my aunt's got butter), and I substituted clementine for lemon zest because that's what I had at home, and they have turned out great - even better than last year. We're going to get up early and decorate them, since we plan to take some to a Christmas party in the afternoon. Also, I've learned that if you bake anything that's brushed with egg, do not expect non-stick cookie sheets to perform as their name might suggest. Egg is an excellent glue and teflon is no match for it. So when in doubt (or even if there is no doubt whatsoever) use paper on your cookie sheets.