Christmas Tree

Warning. Not for the feint of heart.

As you can see, I've Christmasfied the blog. Now I'm doing the same to the house. Ruth and I finished decorating the tree today.

It was an interesting time putting it up. Sweet Hubby and I got the stuff out of storage and brought it in the house Saturday. It was a beautiful day though, so I decided to take advantage of it to do that one last thing I hadn't done yet that needed doing before the snow flies. I pruned the Japanese Flamingo Willow. This is the first time I've done it right. I decided to Google how to prune the darn thing properly. It looks quite nice now and won't be looking all raggedy and out of control come spring. Working on it took the wind out of my sails though. Cold, damp, and smokey air is apparently bad for the asthma. So I settled down and knit for the evening.

Sunday I was looking forward to Ruth and I setting up the tree, putting on the lights and decorations, etc. I forgot she wasn't going to be home. So I ended up doing it by myself.

First, I grabbed the tree box, cut the tape, and lifted the flap. Then I screamed and dropped it. There were about 40 stink bugs crawling around under that flap. I grabbed the box and tossed it out the back door. I don't want those bugs in the house! I got a broom and went outside to brush away the bugs and get them out of the box. While I was doing that, of course, they all started letting off stink bombs (which is why we call them stink bugs) which led to me having an asthma attack. I started coughing and gasping and nearly passed out from lack of air. I sat down and grabbed my inhaler off a nearby table, popped the cap off and inhaled.

Urg! Something solid got sucked down into my lungs. I then started choking and coughing. After a bit of this, an earwig flew out of my mouth and landed on the floor-where it then meekly crawled away. I was shocked!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWW!!!!!! That was just too much for this woman to handle. I was totally grossed out. Now I'm really coughing and gagging (and screaming-or trying to anyway). I dashed to the bathroom and threw up. Yuck!

I can't stand earwigs. They freak me out, the ugly little b&*%#$s. It must have crawled into my inhaler through an opening in the top. Ick ick ick! Having one take a trip into the lungs and back out again....shudder! I've been coughing pretty much ever since then. There's an itchy irritation where that earwig went in. Got hardly any sleep last night. I'm hoping I'll be over this by tomorrow.

Note to self: Check inhaler for bugs before putting it in my mouth.

Despite the horrifying experience, I went back to setting up the tree and installing the lights. Man, it's a lot of work putting the lights on a 7 foot tree. It's especially hard when 2 little kittens won't leave it alone. They were trying to climb it before I'd even had it halfway assembled. I finally grabbed them both and tossed them outside in the sunshine for a bit to get them out of my way.

Today Ruth and I hung the ornaments and finished the tree. I also have finished the knitting of the first not-argyle sock.

YAY!!!

Pics later this week. I'll be casting on the second one tonight for sure.

Live long and prosper. \\//   (cough, cough)