OMG it's a whole new year!

Last night, DH and I lounged in front of the TV with another finger-food feast and champers, watching Johnny Deppin "On Stranger Tides" and then I took a bath and went to bed before 10 PM.  I am SUCH a lightweight!  I'm the one for whom matinees  are made.  And "EarlyBird" dinners.  And even though I wasn't awake and alert to bring it on, never the less, the old year passed and the new one arrived.  The neighborhood has changed enough that no one blew things up or fired guns last night, so I slept through all those changes.  Did I miss anything?

We have a magnolia tree in the back yard that has grown so large that in the summer, when the boughs are heavy with leaves, they almost reach the ground.  Makes mowing the lawn a pain.  So DH decided that he would go prune the tree yesterday.  I got my new, long handled clippers and joined him outside, and we gave that tree a wicked trim.  Then I went for the denuded Christmas tree, chopping it into pieces that would fit in our fire pit.  We spent hours playing with the fire.  Gasoline was brought into play to start the flames since everything had been doused with two inches of rain in the past two days.  I had been folding boxes to recycle, but cardboard boxes make great chimneys to make the fire draw harder.  Then I figured that, instead of blowing on the coals, I could use a small flattened box as a fan, and we were able to get the trunk of the Christmas tree to ignite.  There is a certain primal pleasure in playing with fire.  Eventually we ran out of dry fuel, and things smoldered to an end, but if we ever have to survive on a reset island, we do know how to make things burn.

I saved a few of the magnolia stems and have them stuck in a vase full of water  in the living room to see if they will bloom like forsythia when brought into the warm.  The yard debris can is full, and there are still loads of branches if anyone else wants to try.