Charo's Tree

Yeah! Charo's tree is finally done! I have been working on it for a couple of weeks and it just didn't seem quite right. I kept adding a little here and a little there, but I still wasn't convinced it was a great tree. Finally I decided to go to the Galleries to find a tree skirt, (I bought the material to try to sew one, but decided it just wasn't going to happen,) and to see if they had anything wonderful that would make the tree amazing. Thank goodness I ran into Raelynn McCormick. I didn't know she worked there but she was an angel sent to rescue me. She volunteered to bring a sack full of ideas and try to help me after she got off work. Ten minutes after she got to my house the tree looked amazing! She was a whirlwind sticking picks with colorful balls on it here and there and adding a few sparkly snowflakes and BAM! I now have the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.

Raelynn is my new hero! Some how she managed to work all day, fix my tree and then that night had a beautiful cake with marzipan autumn leaves for decorations for her boys to take to the appreciation dinner for mutual.

Tonight I was so proud of my tree and feeling good when Darren said, "Weren't there lights on the top of the tree?" You've got to be kidding me! It is all decorated, everything is wired on and the top strand of lights quit working. That means I will have to undecorate to fix them or put a new strand on. It will never look quite the way Raelynn had it if I have to undo it. I might just have to bribe her to come back and help me fix it!

All of a sudden I am very sad about having to move the tree out of my house to the display area next Wednesday for the public viewing. I have kind of grown attached to it. It is such a happy tree! I love looking at the little huts and banana leaf people while I work on my computer. It makes me happy to think about the friends I made in Africa. The only thing that makes giving it away a little easier is that the money from the sale of it will hopefully help build a new school for the school mates of the little twelve year old boy that died while we were in Kenya.

Now I need to add the thing I am grateful for today to add to my countdown to Thanksgiving. I am grateful for an amazing husband who figured out what was wrong with my washing machine so I didn't have to pay a repair man $400 just to tell me some weed trimmer line, and some other garbage was blocking the drain!

The only thing is now I don't have an excuse for not doing the laundry because the machine is fixed!

I have this wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Spice Pie. If you can find the pumpkin spice flavored pudding it is yummy, but it is hard to find sometimes - especially in a small town.

Michelle's Pumpkin Spice Pie

Beat 2C. cold milk with 2 packages (4oz. size) of pumpkin spice flavored instant pudding. Then add in 1/4t. cinnamon with a whisk until blended well. Spread 1 1/2C. into the bottom of a graham pie crust. Then add 1 1/2C. whipped topping to the remaining pudding mixture and stir gently. Spoon this over the layer in the crust then top with more whipped topping. Refrigerate for one hour then serve.