AAAARRRGGHHH! HUMBUG!

I am normally in pretty good spirits, especially this time of year.  Decorating this year has had some challenges.  First of all was decorating outside yesterday in the damp weather.  BTW - it's still dark and wet here today.

This morning after breakfast and reading the paper, I started on the tree in the dining room.  This is the one that is visible from the street.  Looks pretty.  That went well.  Then I did some cleaning.  That took a while.  Everything was done except the living room.

After lunch I had to go out to do a couple errands.  They went fine, but traffic was the pits.  I don't know what was going on at Walmart today, but there were some crazy people around the store.  And traffic backed up.  I thought to myself, "gee, I'm glad I'm not going in there".  Remember those words.

So I got home, and started on the living room tree.  Got the angel wired on the top.  I have to do that first or I can't reach her without knocking ornaments off.  Then I did the  silver garland.  Then I got to the extra string of lights that we use so we can plug in our Hallmark Star Trek ornaments.  #!%&^**!!  lights did not work.  I messed with it for about half an hour then tossed them down and gave up on them.  I gathered up my things and headed out.  Guess where??  Walmart!!  Still crazy.  People were running through stop signs and acting ugly.  I found a place to park and went in and bought two sets of lights.  I avoided the fights over carts.  Came home and tested them and they all worked.

Had to take a break to start a pot of chili for supper, then back to the tree.  Put the lights on.  Started to hang the ornaments.  Most either won't plug in, even with the adapters, or they won't work if they do plug in.  While doing some of them, the whole string of lights would go out.  So I worked like that for quite a while until I broke down in tears.  Golfer came to check on me.  After making sure I was okay, his advice was "well, they are old ornaments".  Very true!

So most of the ornaments are not plugged in but are hanging on the tree.  And when it is time in a month to un-decorate, I am getting my wire cutters and snipping all those useless things off the ornaments.  (I might tackle that before then) In the future the ornaments will still be on our tree, but will be unplugged.  I can't stand the aggravation.  As a side note, the new ornaments they are selling now all come with little batteries and do not have to be plugged in.

I was exhausted and frustrated and the tree will be finished tomorrow.

I needed to call HP Ink and get some mailers for recycling our empty ink cartridges.  We have the deal where our printer talks to their computer and they know when to send us more ink.  The last two shipments have not had the mailers.  I tried to handle the issue online and ended up "chatting" with someone named Praveen.  I'll be nice and just say she was totally useless and I disconnected our chat.  Then I called their support number and talked to Stephan and he was most helpful and sounded like he might have been in the USA, and our mailers on on the way.  If Praveen had known what kind of day it had been here, she wouldn't have asked such stupid questions.

When I get the tree finished and living room cleaned up I'll take some pictures.  Stay safe!