Saturday, November 05, 2016

Out and about

* Fairy lights have been obtained ("Warm White" LEDs; Target had all of them up on display for comparison and these were the nicest. They don't twinkle but the warm white (and the fact that their wiring is white) makes up for it. I am going to put them up tomorrow. I also have a timer that I will set - they will come on around 4 pm and shut off around 9 pm, which is roughly the timespan from me getting home to me going to bed.

It occurs to me that for me, this is almost like a magic charm against all the ugliness in the world. What is the charm they used in Harry Potter to disarm someone bent on doing wrong? Expelliarmus? I think.....well, the fairy lights on the entryway door will be like an Expelliarmus! for all the ugliness of the world. That it cannot follow me into the house.

* I also bought a few of their little glitter deer ornaments. Will have to figure out a place for them but my plan for the coming week is to do bits and pieces of housecleaning as I have time, and put up a few decorations piecemeal. I think doing it bit by bit will work better and be more fun than taking one big weekend and doing it ALL. (The tree will go up last, closer to Thanksgiving).

It is going to look like a production of "The Nutcracker" exploded in my house and that kind of pleases me. This has been such an awful, brutal year, and there's been way too much ugly rhetoric that I need glitter, little lights, bright colors, cute things, and reminders of childhood.

* Dad's Christmas present has been acquired, as has the small gift for my brother. I also found my "$5 unwrapped toy to donate" for the AAUW party - the Five Below (a fairly new store for us) was closing out the smallish Aurora standing My Little Pony plushes for $5. So I got an Applejack, on the grounds that she's the closest to normal-pony colors in case a kid who isn't familiar with MLP winds up with her.

I....also bought a Pinkie Pie for myself. Because, despite that third-season episode, I don't think it's possible to have too many Pinkie Pies. This one will live on my sofa with my Pusheen and Basil the Basset and the various pillows I have.

Proof of Pinkie Pie:


Maybe an unpopular opinion but I prefer the Aurora plushies with the fabric hair (like this one) to the ones with the "dolly hair" because the "dolly hair" gets messy and tangled.

They had lots of Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle. I saw ONE Fluttershy (maybe people have picked them over, looking for favorite ponies?) and no Rarities. There were some Applejacks but not as many as the other ones.

Five Below is like the teenybopperest store ever but I kind of love it. It has so many fun silly things and it has WONDERFUL silly greeting cards - I bought a few to have on hand for when I need them. (I had also, on an earlier trip, bought an "authentic" Superball ("With Zectron!") as part of my niece's gift. Because every kid needs an authentic Superball, I think). It's like the best store ever for silly little gifts and I really hope sometime soon one of the Ravelry boards I'm on does a swap because I could get some *excellent* silly stuff at Five Below.

* I did make it to both antique shops. The first one, they had a radio playing way too loud in the store so I didn't stay as long. The second one, they had some of their Christmas stuff up - I bought a vintage poinsettia tablecloth for my table (there must have been THOUSANDS of those printed tablecloths made in the 1950s and 60s, they are in every store I've been in) and also a few tree ornaments. I don't know that the ornaments were "authentically old" but they were inexpensive and they made me smile and one is a teal colored alicorn, so.

I need to make time to go antiquing more; it makes me happier than any other kind of shopping.

* Mom's first mitt is done, the second one is started, that is going to be my evening knitting. I think my knitting mojo is returning.

I am also going to do a pair of mitts - of worsted weight yarn - for the AAUW exchange gift. They will go fast because worsted weight.

* Promising myself I can start decorating for Christmas will motivate me to clean up the house. I need to break down a bunch of boxes I've accumulated and take them in for recycling - I ordered some flour from King Arthur, I have a few Amazon boxes....


*I caught the mouse in my house. I got some snap traps and set them up before I went out shopping, when I got back one was triggered. Tiny little mouse, only about 2" long exclusive of the tail. Tail was furry. I think it was actually a deer mouse rather than a house mouse - it was brownish with a pale belly. I wonder if it was a young one because it was so small.


I feel bad killing it but they can cause damage and carry diseases, and at least a snap trap is a fairly quick and humane death. (I have heard of people using glue boards and I just couldn't do that)

I will leave the other trap set for a while just to make sure there weren't any more. Usually if you have one mouse you have more than one. (There are cats that roam the neighborhood so I wonder if the mice are getting driven indoors - it surely hasn't been cold enough for them to want to come in)

For my garage, I bought a bunch of packets of something called "shake-away" - it's a mint and camphor blend that's supposed to repel rodents. I have not seen any signs of them but I have had them in the garage in the past. I'd rather repel than set traps out there because then I'd have to monitor the traps, and I know that at least one of the critters out there once was a rat of some kind, either a "woodrat" (pack rat) or a roof rat. (Too big for a mouse but too small for a full-blown Norway rat). And I don't want to mess with the big snap-traps; if you aren't careful you can break a finger if they snap on it.

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