Surprise!!!!!!

We returned home after church yesterday and as I sat on the sofa, working on getting jewelry ready for listing on our e-Bay store “The Jeweled Page“, Linda transformed herself into the Christmas Elf and made our living room into a Christmas Oasis as she pulled item after item out of the storage bins we carried up from the basement and arranged them all into an orderly explosion of gold and silver, red and green and other holidayesque expressions of the season which is upon us.  Sitting in the middle of her work space, as I did, I wondered at the fact that I didn’t get adorned with a garland or an ornament stuck in my ear!

Squirrels are pretty smart critters when it comes down to figuring out how to get the birdseed you don’t want them gorging themselves on.  We have a large bird feeder hanging from the gutter by the back door.  Mr/Mrs Squirrel were always hanging from it and we kept moving it; thinking that they were jumping from the electric meter box to get on it … and then thinking that perhaps they were climbing down from the roof we put a large plastic lid over the top of it.  All to no avail … until Noelle helped us figure it out.  She was sleeping curled up on the recliner in the living room and suddenly I observed her head come up quickly and she looked out toward the back door.  Following her gaze I discovered the squirrel climbing up the screen door … and jumping to the feeder from the screen!!!!  The feeder is now a safe distance from the door … unsafe for the squirrel who tries to jump that far.  We’ve hung the feeder in the same place for several years without this problem … but this year the squirrels must be smarter.  Now we just need to figure out how to squirrel proof the front feeders.

I love creating surprises!  I especially enjoy planning elaborate surprises for my sweetheart!  She loves trying to figure them out before they occur.  Well m’lady’s holiday surprise is planned and ready to spring.  She’s already been given a clue (though I’m not sure she knows it).  Here’s another: “Doing it twice makes it twice as nice” 🙂