I Have Always Wanted a Banister

So, I decorated it. Perhaps this will satisfy the neighbors...



Speaking of the neighbors, here is a tree that lives next door. It is a ginko tree. Here is a story about that tree:

The day we moved into our new house, we went on the front porch to take a picture. We smelled something bad, and I thought it was dog poop or fertilizer. A few days later, the Verizon man came to install the Fios package. Every time he came near me, I smelled a poop/fertilizer smell. I thought maybe this was a guy with real problems! Then a couple hours into the job, he told me that he had been stepping on fruit from the neighbors tree, and boy, did it stink. Aaaah! Mystery solved! So, as it turns out, every fall, this giant tree sheds the smelliest fruit you ever smelled, and there is nothing you can do but go out there and clean it all up from the yard, but you have to be careful not to get it on your skin because it will give you ginko berry disease which resembles poison ivy and can make you very sick. I suppose we will just have to make do. Poor Kev was outside for two days picking up all that mess.






Finally, here is our Christmas tree. We let Daphne help put the ornaments on. It was stressful, but sorta fun. Nothing got broken, anyway. And the stockings were hung by the (faux) chimney with mantle stocking hanger things from Target, which I have also always wanted.

So, I got my banister and my mantle things. Is it worth the price of the stinky tree? I reckon so. But then, I'm not the one who had to clean up the fruits.