But I picked up the girls early for the weekend because the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster was working, and it didn't seem right to go get them and then immediately try to find someone to watch them while I went and rode.
Plus, there was business to attend to. Shopping, not for Christmas stuff, but for groceries. Going to my Dad's for Thanksgiving tomorrow and I wanted to take a stuffed pumpkin if possible. Lucked out, the Whole Paycheck Market has them. I think the canneries bought up all the pie pumpkins that normally make their way to the grocery store because of the shortage this year. But the certified organic stuff, they're not going to pay premium prices for pumpkins that go into their regular brand; and even if they tried it, I doubt there's enough certified organic pumpkins to make a difference in the shortage Libby and those guys are dealing with this year.
Whole Foods ain't cheap on anything, but their pumpkins aren't remarkably expensive either.
I got some Gruyère while I was there, the cheese the recipe in question calls for (well, it also calls for Valdeón bleu, I'm substituting some Maytag. I think I might throw some cashews, figs and baby portobellos into the mix this time, too.
After we got back from shopping, I noticed the cute young couple across the street was doing the leaves in their yard, and that except for them, me and one other neighbor are the last remaining stragglers on that front. I was a worse offender, too, because I haven't mowed the lawn since (I think) some time in August.
I really don't want a yard, but ignoring it hasn't made it go away so far. I got out the mower and chewed up the leaves a bit, conscripted the honyocks into getting the ones on the driveway into the yard so I could mulch them up, too. First time, I think, the whole decade I've lived at this address, that I got the leaves out of the driveway before spring.
And we put up our Christmas stuff. Em helped big time. Most of the pepper light strings I bought a couple years ago had gone dark. I'm not very patient when it comes to trying to isolate which light is keeping the whole gang from lighting up. It pisses me off they can't wire the lights some way so that when a bulb burns out, the rest of the string keeps glowing.
But for the most part, I buy lights that were cheap to begin with a week or two after Christmas when Wal-Mart just wants to be shut of the stuff. So a string of lights I paid 50¢ for two years ago, I don't mind (much) just chucking.
But the pepper lights were special, and all but one pepper swag had gone dormant. Thing is, they're just regular lights with soft plastic pepper covers. So Em stripped all the covers off the burnt out strips and put them on the strings of lights that work and voila.
Brought the tree up and put it together, and the girls had fun hanging all the ornaments on it. We even have a tree skirt this year, something I must have bought on an after-Christmas clearance last year because it was still in it's package.
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