Heaviness is too heavy

I was going to type a big, long post about how frustrated I get when people believe that non-religious people have no morals, but it is just not worth it. I don't care what you believe. Just don't use it to fuel hatred, oppression, or feelings of superiority.

Free never means free, Or Guilty Granddaughter

Ok, we have 2 Christmas trees, which is as many as there are in our house. This recent tree came about because my grandpa had two trees, which was one too many, he decided. It is a very nice tree, 7.5 feet, so he didn't want to give it away. I somehow felt compelled to take it and put it up this year...Catholic guilt, you see. It never goes away, even after you stop attending Mass.

The new (to us tree), not only arrived in a large Sylvania television box in approximately 50 pieces but also is not pre-lit. Our other tree is 6 ft. and pre-lit. I was already realizing my horrible, guilt-induced mistake.

I put the tree up myself because Andy decided that he was going to get me a cell phone that actually works. I started out listening to Christmas music, all spirit-y, burning pine scented candles. Grandpa said that the letters had rubbed off of the individual limbs, but that it was simple to just work from the bottom. So I started putting branches up, up, up the tree, approximately 20 levels.

Except, I get to level 17, AND THERE ARE NO MORE BRANCHES. WTF, Grandpa? Well, what he meant by it was easy was that if a branch was too long, he just bent it in half, leaving 6 branches bent in half and looking like they were mangled beyond creation. These were actually the longest branches, meaning they went on the bottom, and all the other branches had to move up one level. Since the number of branches decreased the higher the level, there should be enough total branches. I started the process of taking all the branches off the tree one at a time and unfolding these mangled bottom branches. I switched to listening to house music because I had started crying while Josh Grobin was singing.

2 hours after I started, I had a tree that looked mostly like a normal tree, I was sweating profusely, and I swore that this tree is staying up until April and then getting thrown out.

Andy brought me home a new phone (yay!) and said the tree looked good (smart). We did the lights together. Over 100 ft. of lights later, we have our tree:


We use stuffed animals and toys so that our cats cannot break ornaments. The first Christmas we had Link and Luke, each morning every. single. ornament. was off the tree.

Holla

Been a while. Why do I always forget passwords? I blame all those random companies that have specific requirements for passwords that they don't tell you about when you log in. If I had known that the password had to have a capital and a punctuation mark, it would have narrowed down my options! I am not blaming Google, but I am blaming other companies for needlessly filling my brain with password information.

Well, you would think that I would be on this while I am off work, but that is not the case. Going back on Monday. It will be nice to get out of the house on a regular basis. <---I am capturing this for posterity. I know that I will not feel this way at approximately 9:05 a.m. on Monday.

Ok! Cuteness!


Red Panda at the Cincinnati Zoo. Picture is from this summer, but I was going through my pictures and could not resist the sleepy cuteness! Pretty much my favorite animal.

Also, I am suddenly all over Pinterest, which I blame on Ann