A Messy But Productive Weekend

We had a good weekend around the house, despite the fact that we were both prone to messy accidents.

On Friday, my Oldtimer carried a five gallon bucket of cocoa butter down the basement stairs to my soaproom. On the way down the stairs, he bumped some of the cleaning supplies on the ledge, causing a full bottle of Future floor wax to take a tumble, breaking the lid, and spilling everywhere. I now have the shiniest basement steps of anyone I know.

Not to be outdone, I spent Saturday morning making soap, lotions, body butter AND testing four new fragrances for the soap fragrance line. I had poured all four testers, in the tube molds I use to differentiate the testers, and had turned my back to wash up my equipment. I heard a dreadful noise...and turned to see two full tubes of raw soap dumped out on the work counter and spread over the floor. Now that was a real "clean-up" job!

The rest of our time was spent decorating the house and getting into the holiday spirit. Frankly, since selling the store, we haven't had much holiday spirit, haven't felt like decorating a thing, and have been generally pretty bah-humbugish. It felt so good to get lights to drape on the pretty pine at the base of the back deck, and Oldtimer worked hard to get spotlights on the front of the house just so. I began some interior decorating and tablescaping, too - and we put up the tree in the living/dining room space.

We still have to decorate the tall skinny tree that goes in the downstairs family room, but the photos below show we've made some progress:

For the exterior, we have lights and an angel and peace "theme." Actually, I just wanted an opportunity to show off those wonderful willow angels. I used to use them in the store windows, too. For the interior, it's a bit of an elegant earth-tone feeling on the main level.

We went for a ride to check out other lights last night, cruising the street of newer large homes behind ours. We pulled into a cul-de-sac, and I thought I saw a very large dog jump off the front porch of one house, chasing two deer around the corner. Then I realized the "dog" flashed a white tail as it ran away. I knew the deer in our neighborhood were pretty nervy, but I had no idea they would come right up on the porch! We've been seeing them almost nightly in the yard across the street, and there's strong evidence they've been partying by our pond, but not up on our porch!