I Actually Bought My Christmas Tree---Early

Each year I find it more and more difficult to actually buy my tree.  And I work in a greenhouse with a tree yard outside.  With a wide selection of trees.

I like the wild trees.  Not the shaped and manicured ones.  The ones with large spaces between branches.  I have a GREAT many ornaments.  And I like to place the bigger, heavier ones deep inside next to the stem.  The tiny ones are on the very tips of the branches.  Last year's tree, purchased very late, even had room for the big plastic (vintage) Santa and sleigh.

My tree will have as many ornaments (or more) as the one pictured above.  I just WISH the surrounding could be as austere and cleanly white as those in the picture. I long for austere and live in clutter.

Work was good this week.  Lots of good music from a wonderful collection on an iPhone with a speaker.  Lots of very good laughter.  Oh, a good few minutes of laughter soothes the soul. The only sticking point was--so much customer stuff going on--no time to have lunch together.  But business is good.  And that is a very good thing.

Thirteen or 14 more days of work, at work, before the annual furlough begins.  Then I get to start working HERE at home.  But I also get to sleep and not be up at 6am.  I do not go easily into the morning.

I am beginning to think my rash (yes, it's back but only on the left side of my face, near the hairline) is eczema.  My brother had it.  Caused by food allergies.  I think it gets worse when I eat too much wheat.  And I do eat a lot of wheat based foods.  Or it could just be winter dry skin.  In either event, I am tired of taking Benadryl all the time.

Today, I am baking cookies.  Snickerdoodles.  Chocolate chip.  Perhaps some with dried apricots. I'm not fond of sugar cookies or spritz cookies.  Lebkuchen looks too intense and I don't have the oblaten to bake them on.  I do love them--especially coated in chocolate.  Cinnamon (Zimt) Stars are very good as well and don't have any wheat flour in them.   I once had a basic butter cookie dough that could be used to make a variety of cookies.  Coconut batons with one end dipped in chocolate.  I think the recipe was vintage Bon Appetite.  I made four varieties from the large recipe and carried them on a plane with me to Florida one winter.  That was when one could carry things in a box onto a plane.  All the cookies were eaten the first day in Florida.  Six couples.  I don't think any of the ladies had any.

I have plenty of flour and sugar.  Might need some additional vanilla.

Ready.  Set.  Bake.