My Mother's Daughter

We always said it was a good thing the navy never put a battleship on sale, because we would have had one in the backyard.  My mother simply couldn't pass up a bargain.  At one time, my sister and I had a lifetime supply of Bisquick because it had gone on sale and Mother picked up a few boxes every time she went to the store.  (She lived alone and didn't cook much.)  My first child had twenty-seven pairs of plastic pants (those things that were used to cover leaky cloth diapers in the days before Pampers) before she was born because Mother kept finding packages of four, then six, then eight, for the same price!  Mother's crowning achievement was when she discovered that the grocery store sold cans without labels for ten cents each.  She would bring down a bag full of unidentified cans, and we never knew what we'd be serving for dinner.  Opening those cans was an adventure.  What sounded like peas in a shaken can might turn out to be peaches, and chili was about the same weight as dog food (fortunately, we had a dog, just in case). 

I have two huge artificial Christmas trees out in the second shed, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.  I don't put them up anymore because they are too heavy to bring into the house by myself, and unless the Kids come up at just the right time before the holidays to help, I throw up the house decorations and call it good.  It just doesn't feel as Christmasy without a tree, though.  On my trip to town yesterday, I found one lone tree at WalMart, six feet tall and much narrower at the base, and I could lift it and it wouldn't take up as much room as my big trees.  I located an "associate" (they used to be called salesgirls) and asked if there were a box to go with that tree.  She said that was a display tree and there wouldn't be a box.  "Um, then do you think it might be on sale at a reduced price?"  She brought her magic scanner thingy and, lo!, she also found a few more trees in boxes up on a shelf.  Checking the price, she turned and said, "Five dollars."  Five dollars!!  Man, I'd hit the lottery!  I put the one she handed me into my cart, and have to admit that I snuck back later and got a second one for downstairs.  I mean...five dollars!  Now, these are not "pre-lit" trees, but I happen to have six or eight unopened boxes of twinky lights that I bought on sale some years back and haven't used, and for five dollars, I can string my own darned lights!  I guess I can technically say I have a forest now, what with four Christmas trees in the shed.  I am my mother's daughter.

From the surrounding hills, Two-thousand Eleven was ushered in with many, many gunshots from rifles and pistols of all calibers, so Bessie Anne, Frank, Pearl and I woke up in time to see the ball drop at midnight.  I think there were holes shot in the clouds, as the rain that has been predicted for days is falling now.  Ohmigosh, it's just light enough to see...it isn't rain...it's SNOW!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!