Trees, Cookies and Short Stories

I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't sleep anymore, thinking about the short story I had to post today.  It was still in rough draft form.  So I got up and set right to work. This is one of the depressing Christmas stories, about a woman and her cat who is considering eating her.  It is one of the nastiest stories I've written so far, but as I typed, I was singing Christmas carols. I am a strange woman.

After three solid hours of work the story was done. At 8:00 a.m. I sent it to Wade for a second opinion and went to work on other things.

A friend just got a job as an editor at a business magazine and we're talking about me doing some freelance work.  I used to have a financial column for a log home company so have some experience in that area.  So I spent some time digging through my files to find some tear sheets to send her and got them ready to "snail" mail.  At the same time, I e-mailed my resume to her.

By then, Gary was up and began to decorate.  We are up to ten Christmas trees counting the six on the deck, and debating whether or not to put up an eleventh. But that's not the end of it.  Every inch of this house gets the treatment.

This is what the dining room looks like so far, with ribbons and candles everywhere.  The Christmas cactus is carefully being tended to bloom by next week and through the holidays.  And this is just one room!

The day had turned cold with a brisk wind, so no walking for me. Instead, I went to the aquatic center for a workout in the swimming pool.  That was followed by practice time at church and shopping for more baking necessities.  I still haven't found what I need to bake pecan puffs, but there were chocolate "stars" at Don's Market, so I was able to make peanut butter and chocolate cookies to add to the frosted sugar cookies and banana bread.

By then Wade had checked out the short story.  I made a couple of corrections and posted it at Black Coffee Fiction at http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

This evening, Gary and I went out in his van to check out the Christmas lights around town.  Down on Depot Street, the Seymour Historical Museum has its usual display of memorial Christmas trees.  For some reason the folks on Kuene Street are in some kind of lighting contest.  

I think this may have inspired Gary because we had to stop at a store and look at inexpensive trees.  He decided to wait until the just-before-Christmas discounts, but I expect that eleventh and perhaps twelfth tree are in our future.

And that was my day.  I wonder what we'll do tomorrow?