Lights

It's Fall, which has become my favorite season of the year. (Actually, back-to-school time is my favorite season of the year, and that happens during the Fall. I hate the inconsistent, windy and cold Fall weather.) However, with Fall comes Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. At least until I have to make costumes, anyway.

It's been too cold to put my clearanced-out, end-of-the-season perennials into the ground (freeze warning tonight: 31 degrees,) so I decided to put out my Halloween decorations instead. I told a friend that I was going for the Tackiest Decorations on the Block Award, and if my really tacky things hadn't been destroyed in the (slight) breeze hours after I'd put them up, I would have won for sure.

Needless to say, my husband never gets around to putting up my holiday lights on the house, so I use stakes to put my lights on the ground. This actually looks pretty decent, but bad things can happen. I've had dogs chew up my lights, kids trip over my lights, and just last night, I drove right over my lights.

I had lined the driveway with purple lights, and I wasn't too sure if I liked them. They're pretty on the darkest nights, but dull at dusk. They also clash with the orange lights, which are sharp and bright. Well, my subconscious must have said to lose them, because as I pulled out of the driveway with a van full of kids, (we had to go Boo the neighbors - a weird little Michigan thing similar to May baskets,) I veered right over the purple lights and crushed 1/2 of the string into oblivion.

Ken was trying to direct me out of the driveway at the time, and he became very frustrated with me. (Construction work, toys, and his car were all major obstacles at the time.) After I realized what I did, Ken chewed me out for not following his instructions, which I hadn't been able to hear in the first place. (Four loud kids in a van, radio on, and windows up. Ken needs to come up with hand signals for, "Don't run over your lights!")

Upon reflection, though, I think Ken is trying to figure out how he can get me to run over the remaining orange lights, too. He's not a big fan of my holiday decorations, and certainly not a big fan of lights hovering over the ground. But even moreso, he's not a big fan of climbing on ladders and putting my lights where they belong - on the house.