Today is DH's birthday! So please join me in song:

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear DH!
Happy birthday to you!

And a Sto lat! for good measure!

And many happy returns!

M

Depression

My new theory (and I haven't done any research on this, so it could be someone else's theory, or it may have been debunked at some point) is that depression is simply a state of extreme connectedness. It's like you feel everything, only magnified. Or maybe that's actually more bipolar ;) I've just been finding that I respond emotionally to everything, just a lot stronger than usual. Sort of a super-enhanced PMS, withouth the aggressivity ;)

I find myself moved by most human contact. It sounds kinda silly, but I am amazed at the good will that people have towards me. People smile and say hi, or stop for a quick chat in the hallway. It makes me feel connected to the fabric of the universe, as those tiny little threads of human connections are an intergral part of the big tapestry.

I'd keep on philosophizing, but I got lots of work waiting for me...

P.S.

Forgot to mention in my last post: the one thing yesterday (and today) that really touched my heart was all the birthday wishes I got from people. I am not the best at remembering dates, so I am always so amazed that anyone would remember my birthday! It sounds kind of silly now that I've written it down, but it was really nice to be remembered I guess :) I am so vain!

Yay?

So yesterday was my birthday. The big 3-2. Not a milestone birthday by any stretch, and yet it hit me like a ton of bricks. This is most likely because I've been in quite a bit of a slump for the last month. Nothing serious, just a bit of depression coming back to haunt me. Never let it be said that you can get over depression... No matter where you get in your life it's always lurking around the corner waiting to pounce the moment it realizes that you are vulnerable. Sigh!

Now, don't you go and get worried about me. The fact that I am actually writing about it tells me that I am much better able to handle this than I've ever been. I am not looking for sympathy, and this is not some cry for help, I just thought I'd document a bit of what's going on inside my head (a dicey proposition at the best of times!)...

In all fairness, my birthday itself was very nice. Everyone involved did their best to celebrate the occasion with enthusiasm and flair. My family in Montreal threw a dinner party Sunday night, which was quite delicious and very enjoyable. I got beautiful gifts and cards, and even cake (though it was chocolate, so I didn't actually have any). We didn't leave Montreal until late, so we got home past our bedtime, but it was worth it :)

Then last night DH took me out for dinner, and then we had another cake at home. This one was a raspberry mousse, so I had a decent sized piece :) He also got me a very very cute little marzipan tiger. I'll try to remember to take a picture of him one of these days so I can post it here.

So you're going to say this doesn't really sound like such a terrible birtday, and you're probably right. Except maybe for all the people asking me about my procreation plans... And most of those people were not even aware that it was my birthday! What, do I have a tattoo on my forehead that says "Please ask me about babies!!!"? I mean, I expect that from my Mom, but casual acquaintances at work??? Just plain weird. It doesn't really help that the writer of one of the blogs I've come to follow religiously get some terribly upsetting news yesterday (and I find that she communicates it so well, you feel like you're there with her...).

So why the long face you ask? They say depression doesn't need a reason, and that's probably true, and sometimes small things (and at times big things) can give you that little nudge... And now every time I think about writing a blog, the only things that come to mind are dark and gloomy thoughts. Instead of giving into that impulse, I've decided that I want to sit down and write an entry about all the happy moments in my life, and I hope to be able to do that at some point this week. But I have to admit that it's turning out to be a lot harder than expected. I could certainly go for hours talking about the low points, but really, I am dubious about the benefit of that. I am long past the point where it would feel cathartic, it seems more self-indulging and whiney... Yes, the bad times deserve to be documented at some point, but I'd rather see them documented with a good dose of humour (even if it's black), rather than self-pity... So they will have to wait until my sense of humour is back ;)

Other than that, 32 feels fine. My Mom was recalling how old she felt when she was 32 (and on her second pregnancy), but I don't find myself feeling much older than last week. Or wiser for that matter ;)

That's it for my birthday ramblings... I promise to be more upbeat in an upcoming entry (though that may have to wait, as spare time is pretty hard to find these days - tomorrow nigh our choir has another performance at a retirement residence, so I am sure tonight's practice is going to go late...).

Oh, and just so that this post is not all gloom and doom, I am really quite excited about the end of this month, as most of DH's family is planning to descend on our house. It will be DH's grandmother's 95th birthday, so BIL and his pregnant wife and their twins, SIL and her husband, and FIL are all going to come over to stay at our place for the weekend. I'm sure it's going to be fun (though hectic). And it will definitely help pull me out of this slump ;) Babies have a way of doing that!!! I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures.

Another weekend bites the dust

Another busy weekend went by. Unfortunately, I had to come into work on Sunday, but it was such a beautiful day DH decided to go for one last skate on the canal. As of this morning, the canal is now closed, so it was his last chance. We toyed with the idea of going for a ski in the late afternoon, but the snow levels are pretty low. The sun has been melting the snow quite a bit over the last week...

In other news, from the wild animals at the homestead, yesterday afternoon I found a dead mole at the back entrance to the house (sorry, no pictures). Placed perfectly just at the door. Because I suspect no mole in its right mind would climb 7 steps of stairs just to die at our doorstep, I am assuming this is a present from our feline friend. She hasn't forgotten us! Even though she spent most of the winter in the neighbour's barn, she must still have fond memories of us, leaving us such a sweet (and gross) present! I ended up using the snow shovel to get it out in the yard...

Aside from that, we did some more tidying up around the house. We finally completely cleaned out the computer room. I wish I had taken a before picture, because the room is unrecognizeable now. We took out a bookshelf, and moved the old computer downstairs, so the room is a lot more spacious, and DH keeps complaining about the echo :) We need to hang up stuff on the walls, now that we've opened up so much space... I am not the biggest cleaning/tidying fan out there, but I have to admit that it's a nice feeling to get the place cleaned up like this from time to time. We now have at least 3 more useful rooms compared to what we had at the end of last year (1 unfinished room, and 2 rooms full of junk). Which works out well, since at the end of the month we will have a house full of guests, as DH's family is coming to town to celebrate his grandmother's 95th birthday. That means my FIL will be here, plus two couples (SIL+husband and BIL+wife), plus the twins. We better have lots of space so everyone can fit and not feel crowded...

Work is getting busier and busier all the time. I think it's only going to get worse, at least until the summer. I am in charge of a project that is going to require lots of coding, and there's only two of us working on it (the other guy being a new grad), and we only have around 10 weeks to get it all done. All of it. And I am still just working on the documentation for it... But I'm getting a fairly good idea of what we need to do, and if I need to work nights and weekends, then so be it. At least it's a very interesting project, working on something that's new to me, so it's kind of exciting. Ask me again if this was a good idea in 2 months :)

That's my update for today!

Animal video

This video just made my day! You need sound to fully enjoy it, so put on your headphones, or un-mute your speakers :)



Isn't it great? Certainly brightened up my day :)

So here we go again

Today is D-day for layoffs in my area. Everyone is pretty gloomy. It looks like most of the people were notified already, so everyone is gathering in the hallways discussing what it all means. I have to say, they always manage to surprise me. Some of the cuts were unfortunately quite expected, but others seem to come out of the blue. Then again, some people seem to escape multiple rounds of layoffs unscathed, though if this had been "Survivor", they would have been voted off long ago.

It's really hard to find the motivation to do anything at all when stuff like this happens. I know I am behind on producing my document, and I was really hoping to have it done today, but it's starting to look less and less likely that it will actually happen. Instead, I am chatting with coworkers and blogging. I think it's a pretty common thing, that a day of layoffs roughly translates into a week of lost productivity. Even though we're getting better and better at dealing with it, realizing that it's not the end of the world. Most people I know who got let go, ended up going on to do bigger and better things (one of my friends completed a grueling MBA program, and had just joined the Clinton Foundation, helping stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa - how cool is that?). Still, this kind of rejection is never easy, especially in the first few days/weeks/months. Everyone goes through all those stages of grief, though some faster than others. Those of us left behind simply shake our heads, and wait for the next round...

Told you things were gloomy around here!

Later!

Long time no post...

Sorry for the long silence, it's been a little hectic recently... To make up for it, here's a link to a test I found really interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/index_cookie.shtml

My result was at the 25 mark on the female side. I had a lot of fun filling it out too :)

We don't really have any plans for the weekend, just hanging out and relaxing. Last weekend we had some friends over, and next week we're hosting another dinner party, so this weekeng we're taking it easy. It's been a hectic two weeks, so we need some rest.

Last night we went to the movies and saw "Ghost Rider", which I would recommend you avoid if you can! I don't usually mind comic book based movies, but this one had absolutely no substance. Nicholas Cage didn't do too bad, but the lead female actor, Eva, was pretty one-dimensional...

Later!

Another weekend over...

Where does the time go? We had another super busy weekend. Friday night I babysat our friends' twin girls - soooo cute!!!! Had a lot of fun with the little tykes, they're getting so big, and so independant. And they're starting to say some words! It was my first time alone with the girls, and it went very well. I was introduced to the delicious snack of goldfish (yummy), interspersed with raisins :)

On Saturday we went over to a friend's place for an evening of card playing (the distinguished game of a$$h@le), and that ended pretty late. And this morning I had brunch with a few friends. In between all this socializing, we managed to do some more cleanup in the house, emptying out the closed in one of the guest rooms, using the handy new wardrobes that we have installed in the basement. So we now have a nice clean and uncluttered room, which is really good, as we haven't been able to use it much lately...

Here's a shot of the aligned wardrobes:


And now it's the end of the weekend again... I wish I could say I'm ready for another work week, but I think I could use an extra night of sleep ;)

As promised a few weeks ago, here's a shot of the latest basement renovations: notice the post cover, complete with the baseboard covers on the bottom, as well as the baseboards and quarter rounds at the bottom of all the walls:



Before I sign off, I'd like to recommend a movie we saw last week: Pan's Labirynth. It's a spanish movie released last year that's making the rounds in local theatres. It's pretty gory at times, we both looked away during a few scenes, but overall it's a great movie. Wonderful fantasy sequences, juxtaposed with civil war era Spain, it is beautifully filmed, with great acting. Hollywood quality production, with independent quality narrative. Highly recommended!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Gloomy wednesday

Here we go again... My company announced another round of layoffs... Not that it was completely unexpected, or that we shouldn't do any trimming... But it's always so unpleasant to go through another round. Was chatting with some coworkers today and we all agreed that it's hard to tell what the "best" outcome is, as getting a package sure has it's own attractions. So it's not so much being worried about losing our job that gets to us. It's the uncertainty, not knowing who goes and who stays, hard to get any work (or even worse, planning) done. People cancel their vacations, people hold off on major purchases... It's a big disruption. And then when the axe falls, it's always hard to say goodbye to friends and coworkers... Of course this year quite a few people have quit, so we've been saying lots of goodbyes anyway!

So that's my sob story for the day. Oh, and it's pretty darn cold outside too. Though luckily I haven't had to spend much time outdoors lately. Our wood pile is getting small, it'll soon be time to cut and split some more wood, but it's definitely not the kind of work I feel like doing when it's -25 outside :) Yesterday my car had the check engine light on, and I was starting to get worried, but I gassed it up and it's fine now, so I am assuming the cause for the light was just little gas in the tank combined with the frigid weather. That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;)

On the family side, still no news from FIL. He's stable and waiting. Hoping to come and visit us around March 31st, to celebrate his Mom's 97th birthday. DH's brother and his wife are also planning to fly in, with the twins, for a big family reunion :) In the meantime, my own folks are traipsing through Chile - sounds like a lot of fun: active volcanoes, lots of trees and flowers and lots of opportunities to practice their spanish!

Hope you're all keeping warm and having fun.

Football cake

Quick update on the football cake: the shape is a little less than perfect (slightly lumpy), but I managed to produce something vaguely resembling a football. I just hope it tastes good :)

And now I'm ready to sleep. Too much cake and icing and running around trying to get this thing assembled. But I'm glad I took a picture, so I can have a reminder :) This is the first time that I've attempted something cooky like that.

Welcome to February

And so it is February. Winterlude, Ottawa's yearly winter festival has started. The canal is filled with people on skates, taking advantage of the mild-ish weather. DH went skating earlier this week, but I haven't had the chance yet. Instead, today we went to the National Gallery, to see a traditional Haida dance performance. A friend from the McGill alumni choir had invited us, and it was definitely worth the visit. Both DH and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'd never had a chance to see anything like this in person, and I found it very captivating. I was expecting to be entertained, but came out spiritually rejuvenated. I'd certainly recommend it. Although it seems like this is a fairly rare event, so unless you live on the west coast of BC you may not often get the chance to see something like this. I certainly gained a better appreciation for the Haida carvings. Seen in a museum, they may be interesting, but when worn in a dance, they take on a life of their own, and seem to communicate a lot more. Or at least that's been my experience... So I am very thankful to my friend for letting us know this was happening (it didn't seem to be a very publicised event).

Tomorrow we're going to a friends' house for a Superbowl party. I am attempting to make a football shaped cake - hope it comes out ok :O

Later,

More kittens...

Man, I can't believe February is almost here. Where does the time go? This Saturday, my parents are leaving for a vacation in Chile...

Not much time for posting tonight, but I just wanted to add another movie starring our favourite kittens :)



Later!

Kittens... soooo cute!

As promised, I'm posting a video of kitten sillyness. Nothing cuter than tiny little kittens discovering their world.



Hope you like it!

The saga continues...

Well, we fought some more with the video camera and the laptop on the weekend. We actually ended up using USB2 instead of firewire to transfer the video (with Windows Movie Maker), and that seemed to work fine. Of course most other video editing software requires firewire upload, so we may still have to configure that at some point.

So I spent a whole bunch of time downloading video from the 3 90-minute tapes that we have. All the downloading has to be done real-time, with the tape in playback mode, so as you can imagine it takes a bit of time. And of course after I'd done most of the transferring, I was surprised at the small footprint of all the files (I was expecting Gigs, but only got a few hundred Megs). Turns out I was downloading the video at a lower resolution/quality. Even though the option I selected was "Best quality for my computer". Sigh! So then I downloaded a few pieces of video at full resolution. That does take a lot of space! So I think I will download bits at a time, edit them, write them to DVD (gotta go buy a DVD burner first). I don't have enough space on my hard drive for more than one tape at a time.

Oh, the joys of video editing! Maybe tonight I'll be able to post a quick video of the kittens that I filmed last summer (too cute!!!).

Aside from all the playing around with the video camera, I had a pretty good weekend. Lots of stuff got done, I got caught up on laundry, did a bunch of cooking (first case of badly burned food in my brand new pot, seems to have survived ok), some sewing (I fixed up a set of sheets - that was a big job!), more basement work (we had to re-glue the post covers), some cleanup and tidying. But it wasn't all work no play, I also went to the NAC to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform "A Cinderella Story". A new twist on the timeless classic ;) It was very cute, I liked the choreography and the costumes. Unfortunately they had a couple of issues with their props (a piece of cable tangled up in the main character's skirt, a curtain that stayed stuck in one of the four anchor points), which was a little distracting. But overall it was a nice evening. Though I spent all of my intermission in the bathroom lineup - with only 3 stalls in the ladies room, it was very hard to get in... I was impressed at the number of young people (not just small kids, but teenagers), and especially young men attending the performance. And most of them really dressed up! It was very neat! After the performance we went out for our traditional tea at the the Chateau Laurier. As usual, very nice!

I think that sums up the weekend pretty well. Oh, yeah, Sunday night DH and I watched a movie from 10 years ago called Thousand Acres. I really liked the movie, for some reason it spawned a whole bunch of thought processes in my head. I must have just been in the right mood, because I can see how it could also be considered slow, boring and a little melodramatic. Though DH said that it wasn't bad as far as chick flicks go ;)

Later,

Video camera saga

You just gotta love technology. With it's promises to deliver faster, cheaper, more exciting things all the time, you can't help but buy in to the hype. After all, they must know what they're doing!

Well, let me tell you the long and convoluted story about our China movies. We bought a digital video camera before going to China, because we really wanted to capture parts of our trip on video. We're really glad we did, because some of the footage is pretty awesome. However, when we bought the camera, we didn't buy anything to transfer the video to our computer, where we could edit the more than 3 hours of video we filmed. We figured we'd just buy all the hardware later.

You would think it would be pretty simple to buy what we need: a firewire card that can plug into our laptop, and a firewire cable to connect the camera to this card. Over the Christmas break, I ventured into Future Shop to get the combination of card and cable, and came home with both, pretty happy with myself. Well, it turns out the card works for some laptops, but not ours. Not that our laptop is anything special. It's not brand spanking new (around a year old, which in computer terms is pretty old), it's not very fancy or anything. It just uses a PCMCIA interface that apparently no store in Canada (or at least Ottawa) carries. I spent a few good hours on the internet that night trying to figure out what the specific interface is that we need. On our slow 56K connection, it took me 3 hours to download the user's guide for the laptop just to confirm that I had the right name for the interface... I ended up returning the card to Future Shop, thank goodness for their forgiving return policy!

Sigh! So you would think once I had the name of the interface (ExpressCard, for those technically inclined), it would be a snap to get the right parts... Well, as I mentioned, I could not find a local store carrying any ExpressCard cards. Not even the Dell store (we have a Dell laptop). So in the end we resorted to buying the card online. Straight from the manufacturer, to simplify things. We figured it would take a week or two, and we would have our card. Lo and behold, we get a card in our mailbox yesterday (more than 3 weeks after placing the order), telling us that there is a package at the UPS depot, and it will be held there until the 22nd (and we got the card on the 24th!). We raced to the UPS depot, where luckily they still had the package. I guess they were dragging their feet because it was an international parcel. Lucky for us! Though I still don't know why it took the little notice almost 10 days to get into our mailbox...

So we were hoping this would be the end of the story. After all, we now have a card, and a cable, the one I had bought at Future Shop around a month ago... We were so wrong! It turns out that there are 3 types of interfaces for those darn firewire cables: 4 pin, 6 pin and 9 pin. As luck would have it, the cable I bought was a 4-to-6 pin (the camera has a 4 pin output, so that end has to be 4), but the new card requires a 9 pin. So we really need a 4-to-9 pin cable. A quick look at the websites for the various stores so far shows no availability of such a cable locally. There are 4-to-6 cables, 6-to-6, 9-to-9 and other variants, but no 4-to-9. We did find a 4-to-9 cable in an online store, but we'd rather not wait another 3 weeks to get this last part. We'll go take a look at a few local stores to see if there is maybe a way to get this locally.

Needless to say, this is a very frustrating process. All we wanted was two pieces of hardware to connect our camera to the laptop. We thought we knew the specs of what we needed. Turns out, there's more than one (or 2) types of PCMCIA cards, and more than 1 (or 2) types of firewire cables. The proliferation of standards is just such a pain in the behind for the average consumer, and there's nowhere you can find any resources to guide you with your purchase. Even most of the computer stores we went to had no idea what we were talking about when we asked for the parts by name. I can't imagine someone who's not working in high tech trying to get this stuff. Very frustrating!

Hopefully our last step in this unnecessarily long process doesn't take too long. Once I can get the video from the camcorder to the laptop, I will probably post a few short clips, to show you it was all worthwhile. Of course I will first have to find, install, configure and learn some kind of video editing software...

I think that's probably long enough of a rant for one day :)

Take care!

Still no news...

about FIL. Waiting for a meeting with the neurosurgeon, crossing our fingers! And sending positive vibes... We may have to go to London (ON) to visit sometime soon.

In the meantime, we're making a bit more progress on the basement front. We put brand new covers on the old ugly posts in the basement. Unfortunately the first glue we tried didn't work very well, so we'll have to re-glue... But in a few days, we should really be done with the whole basement renovation. And then I promise to post those pictures (the camera battery is needs recharging).

In the meantime, I thought I would post another barn picture, as promised in my profile, from a different season. Here's one from September 2003:

The good, the bad and the ugly...

Here's some good news: tonight I managed to touch up the paint on the baseboards and the quarter rounds in the basement. So as of today the basement flooring project can be considered done. Yay!!! Pictures to come very soon (once we move the furniture back to where it belongs).

Now from the adventure archive... Last week the driver's side headlight fried in the Audi. Which is doubly annoying, because the car has some kind of detection mechanism to diagnose it, and beeps loudly whenever you start it. It's not easy to access the headlight, so it wasn't something we were going to change ourselves. Luckily our mechanics are great and told us to drop by anytime to get it fixed. But I had been too busy to actually go there during the week. Then last Thursday, I was driving back home from my volleyball game downtown, at around 10pm, just so eager to get home, minding my own business. Some guy in an old beat up car with a makeshift back seat window made out of duck tape pulls out across the street, driving slightly erratically. As I am thinking "where are the cops when you need them?", I notice a police car on the side of the road. The cop pulls out, and starts to drive behind me. He follows me for a few blocks, and then puts on his lights... So I pull over trying to get out of his way, and he proceeds to pull over behind me. I could not believe it! I've never, ever been pulled over by the police, so I was very shocked. The cop comes over to let me know that I have a headlight out. I told him that the car lets me know about it :) He says he has to give me a "72 hour", which is basically a ticket that you can get cancelled if you show up at the police station showing that whatever problem has been fixed. And then he asks me for the papers. I found my driver's license, but couldn't find anything else (except for some expired papers). So I got another "72 hour", which was really lucky. Of course by the time I got home, DH showed me all the appropriate papers in the car (where I had looked, though I guess I was a little too nervous). Anyway, I got both tickets cancelled the next day (after a quick trip to the mechanics'), but it was still quite an adventure...

And in the not so fun news, one of my good friends at work decided to quit last week, to pursue a graduate degree. It's really good for her, and I am happy she's pursuing her dreams, but it will be kind of sad without her around. We've been having lunch together every day at work for years now, so it will be a big difference...

And just hot off the presses (DH just talked to his sister), FIL had a few other MRIs, and went through an epilepsy clinic, and they're now pretty much convinced it's a tumor. I guess in a way it's good news, because there's a diagnosis, but it's also very scary... We'll keep you posted!

Good night!

Basement weekend (again)

I am sure you're getting bored with hearing me talk about the basement renovations... The good news is that it only needs another weekend or so to be completely finished. This weekend we managed to cut, paint and install all the quarter rounds, so all that's left is touching up the freshly installed baseboards and quarter rounds, and installing column covers over the ugly columns in the center of the room.

This weekend, IKEA had some wardrobes for sale for $100 (it's called Alleby wardrobe, but there's no good links for it on their site). For such a low price, how can you go wrong? So we bought 3 of them, and even assembled one. They will provide storage in the newly finished basement room. They're not too hard to assemble, though they're not the most sturdy thing out there (but for the price, I didn't expect much). I don't think they would survive being disassembled and re-assembled very well. But they should fit our need just fine. So that's another thing that still needs to be done: assemble the two remaining wardrobes. And then I can start migrating some of the mess from upstairs into an organized mess in the basement :)

In other news, this morning we woke up to a beautiful carpet of snow all over the yard. Yes, winter has finally decided to arrive. It's very pretty, all pristine white everywhere. And lots of fun to be had in the all-wheel-drive, winter-tire claden and equipped with stability control vehicle. I had a blast driving in to work this morning :) DH had to drive the trusty old probe, but even his drive in wasn't too bad (not too much traffic so early in the day, and in town the snow was just starting). Maybe there's some hope for winter yet ;)

Time to get back to work!

Long time no write

Yes, I've been slacking... Well, at least when it comes to blogging :) We had a pretty busy weekend, and even weekdays have been pretty filled the last week or so. We've finally resumed working on finishing the basement. It's only been going on for 2 years now :O But the end is in sight! For over a year the only thing that was left to do was baseboards and quarter rounds. Well, as of Sunday, the baseboards have been installed! They just need a bit of touch-up paint, and they're ready to go. We need another free weekend to do the same with the quarter rounds, and the basement floor will be officially done. It will be a great accomplishment, although we do feel quite guilty for procrastinating so long on something that only takes 2 weekends to do...

I'll post some photos of the stages of our basement "upgrades" next time I post from home. With the fake fireplace, and some furniture strewn around the room it's starting to look like an inhabitable space, and not the ginormous cavern it used to be :)

To get the baseboards installed, we needed a nail gun, and so we proceeded to a Canadian Tire store to get it. Usually, I avoid shopping for at least a whole month after Christmas (being all "shopped out"), so this was the first time I got to see the Canadian Tire parking lot in early January. I could not believe the number of cut Christmas trees still in the lot, that never got sold. It's so sad that all those trees have been cut, and are now pretty much useless (well, except maybe for mulch or something). Christmas trees always present me with a dilemma. We always had fresh cut Christmas trees at home, as big as we could possibly fit into the house! So I always associate the smell of the sap and the evergreen with the Christmas season, and find it hard to imagine celebrating the season without a fresh tree standing in the corner. On the other hand, I have some concerns about buying live Christmas tree, mostly because of the environmental impact (big waste, and poor forestry practices associated with the business).

One year we went to a "cut-your-own" lot (where at least few trees get wasted, and some are left to grow to full size), but we ended up with an infected tree with bugs that were quickly eating up the needles. We had to throw out the tree a few days after Christmas, because we were afraid the bugs would attack our furniture or something. It was pretty gross, and I even had nightmares of the bugs eating through our floor for a few months after that...

Then another year we bought a tree in a pot. We figured we would use it as a Christmas tree, and in the spring we would plant it in the back yard. Sort of a slow re-forestation process for our back forty. Unfortunately, I was pretty clueless about this. We had been storing the tree out on our deck, and brought it in for the Christmas season. When all was said and done, I brought it back onto the deck. Going from the temperate climate of inside the house to the dead of winter killed the tree pretty much on the spot... This is probably an experiment worth repeating, keeping the tree indoors until the spring. But it requires andvance planning, because it's hard to find potted evergreens in November, when all the nurseries have closed...

This year we cut a tree that was on its way out anyway, so that made the decision easy. We definitely have a bunch of adequate Christmas-like trees in the back yard, but I'd rather see them grow and multiply rather than cut them down. I would love to have more trees growing back there, though so far all our efforts to plant new ones have been thwarted (mostly by the animal population deciding to munch on the tasty new greens...).

So that's my rant about Christmas and evergreens and trees in general :)

Take care!