Tinsel Interview

Interviewer: Fiorella, every time I drive by your property, I admire those tinsel garlands strung from tree to tree down your driveway.  Where did you get the idea?

Fio: Actually, it was pure desperation. I wanted to decorate the front of our property, but the road is an acre up from the house and we have a screen of trees across it, which meant I couldn't use lights or fiberboard stand-ups. I stared at everything for a while, waiting for inspiration, and finally realized garlands were my only choice. They're lightweight and inexpensive, tinsel catches the light, and they provided a continuous line for the eye to follow.

Interviewer: I noticed that you have added more garlands this year.

Fio: The first year, I was using leftovers from inside decorations and hung just a few trees on the road and a few more down the drive. Now I'm up to 300 yards of garlands, although half of that number is due to my adding a second tier of tinsel so I have a double hang.

Interviewer: How the heck do you secure the garlands to the trees?

Fio: At first, I just looped them around whatever nature provided, which meant I had to walk the drive every day and reposition the them. The next two years, I used wire, which was a bitch to take down after Christmas. This year, I used twisties, which are fabulous, especially when I have to hang the garlands from metal stakes because I've run out of trees..

Interviewer:  Any problems?

Fio: The cedars. I've had to be ruthless with them because they tend to reach out and snag the tinsel. My repair kit this year consisted of twisties, scissors, and pruners.

Interviewer: Do you have any final advice for anyone else who wants to hang garlands outside?

Fio: Buy your packs at a dollar store and save them year to year. Tinsel is cheap, but it adds up.

Miracle Needed, Please

Count-down to Christmas, which means Fiorella hasn't worked on her Spanish for a week (una semana) written a word on the book (el libro) for two days, and didn't lift a single rock (una roca) today. What she did do was finish off her card and take it to FedEx Kinkos for printing, run around to several stores to buy up the last of the tinsel in town, and populate the fake greenery swag over the dining room (el comidor) window (la ventana) with small birds made of feathers and ornaments that look like fruits and vegetables. She's hoping to have all her Christmas preparations finished on Wednesday, Thursday at the latest, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, send healing thoughts to Fio. She's been crying again--the Electoral College thing. She didn't expect anything, but had prayed for a miracle. Maybe, maybe, maybe, there still is one in the offing. It's that time of year.

Fourth x Three

In order to keep Austin son and daughter from having to trek out to Georgetown three times in one month, Fio and Husband proposed combining their BDs--his in late June and hers in mid-July--with the family Fourth of July celebration. Son, of course, brought his lovely wife with him, and Daughter brought her BF.  There was joy and laughter and a card and a gift and far too much good food. The hit of the show was Daughter's BF, who cooked the hamburgers to a chef's perfection. If he will attend, Fio will try to sneak in a second celebration when her real BD rolls around.
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Fiorella did it again--came up with a clever, cheap, last-minute holiday decoration.  And all it took was a pair of scissors, Scotch tape, and colored paper, which Fio has mounds of.  First she cut a couple of pages of red paper and blue paper into strips about an inch wide. Then she cut a three pages of white paper into strips.  Next she taped the strips into a kindergarten chain--red-white-blue-white etc. Then she drooped the chain across the fireplace, draping the sides and taping the center of the chain upward to the middle of the mantel. Topping the upward center was a fan-type cockade she made by taping three leftover strips together horizontally. Took about twenty minutes in all.
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Daughter gave Fio a DVD of My Big Fat Greek Wedding2 for Fourth of July/Fio's birthday so Husband ran it for her yesterday evening.  It's Fio's kind of movie--sweet, sentimental, and funny. She laughed and cried and made mewing noises at the happy ending. Try it--you'll like it.

Happy Easter!

Check back later for an Easter illustration, if Fiorella can get it on the screen.

Sweat, tears, and several hours later, here it is, thanks to Husband and to Minnesota Son.  This is a picture of our landing window.  We've left the Christmas candles up. and Fio wanted a springtime look so she started cutting long, winding strands of flowers out of gold and silver paper she had stowed away from candy wrappers, then taping them to the window.  The design grew organically, to use the current buzz word, and every time Fio passed by, she would add something to the design until it suited her eye.

Holiday Decor

Fiorella decorated her elephants yesterday.  The pachyderm parade that marches across a forty-eight inch-long shelf  in the den is now sporting red bows around their necks  Today she'll necktie the Mexican birds on the shelf above them--and the eighteen-inch tall ceramic pelican on the shelf beside them.  The beer stein collection on the other side of the fireplace will be similarly beribboned, as will the painted duck decoy across from the steins.

Yes, Fio is a decorating fool. If you see her coming toward you with a glazed look in her eye and a spool of ribbon in her hand, RUN!

Mental Overload

Fiorella has too many tentacles reaching out in too many different directions.  For instance, she's been listing thing lately, like the five places she's lived, like the names of her best friends and how she met them--toting up, so to speak.  She's also planning a blog about why she would never write a Fifty Shades of Grey-type book. And she's contemplating how integral decoration is to mankind.  Thank about it. We decorate our big rigs with colorful advertisements.  We decorate out buildings with graffiti.  We doodle on notepads.  We decorate ourselves with clothes and jewelry and make-up.  We're like ravens, always with an eye out for the next shiny stone, and Fio thinks it's born in.

Is sampling off the ever-fertile brain of Fiorella a bit too much for you?  Well, just think of what it's like for Fiorella!