Season of Frenzy -- Shopping, Friends and Ideas!

We're counting down and of course, more behind than ever, but doing my best not to stress about it!

Rick helped me decorate my big tree -- pix to come. But here's a helpful hint. If you have a cat (especially a curious one), consider anchoring your tree with big boxes of kitty litter on each leg. The extra 25 pounds will protect the tree from falling and you won't have to buy kitty litter for a bit!

On the home front -- playing with a bit more easy decorating. (I may have a lot of trees up, but they are small and had lights on when they came up from the basement, so there are few ornaments on most of them!) I liked tossing silver balls into my shells from Myrtle Beach.

And I loved rediscovering this sweet Santa couple from my past when splunking in the basement last week. The paint is peeling -- no, just dropping off in powdery bits! (Lead, I'm sure.) I've not had them out for a long while.

But as you can see from the photo below, they are definitely golden oldies and it's nice to have them there with me this year, reminding me of mom and dad.

I've been shopping -- locally when I can. Here's a photo from Vets, Too. Vets is a hardware store in Lansing, and the gift shop next door has some lovely things year round. Most of the photos in this post are from there.

Summer Schriner (of Grace in Lansing, where we visited a week or so ago) cites The 3/50 Project as a great tool for people to take action by. The concept is for financially able residents to spend $50 at three different locally owned brick and mortar shops in their city. According to the 3/50 website

For every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home. (Schriner quoted from Lansing Capital Gains).

Makes sense to me.

Time with friends. In my last post we visited the adorable Sweetie-Licious bakery in DeWitt, where I enjoyed tea with my friend Judy.

A few days later, a group of us got together for lunch. It's hard to get a group of nine all in one place at the same time and we didn't do it that day, either. Those of us who were there laughed, celebrated each others' triumphs, offered support for the challenges and had a divine time. Which, of course, is what the holidays are all about.

Rhonda, Jeanie, Holly, Kate and Jane

So, on this Saturday before Christmas, game on! Time to check inventory, wrap for mailing, do some shopping and work on getting our cards.

Rick will take a break from the bike today -- later we'll get his tree so we can decorate it tomorrow!

There are presents to be wrapped -- and I want to take photos at the museum's Christmas exhibit this weekend, too!

So, I'd best put on my big girl boots, start softening butter for this weekend's baking marathon and start taking inventory.

Christmas is coming and this woman is on a mission!