After four days of frequent interruptions, I finally have the tree done. We had a three-footer for years, but this year bought a six footer. I had forgotten how much work it is to get the lights on, and wasn't sure how many ornaments we had left. But it's done and it looks great!

I was looking at our menus for this week, and I realized that I hardly have to buy anything. If I concentrate on using up what we have on hand, all I need to add is salt, flour, baking powder. We're like a pair of '49'ers panning for gold. Jim grows way more than we can eat!

I made soap four days ago, and it's turning out really well. It was halfway set up before I got all the lye water in it, so it hardened really fast. Guess it's time to dig out the fragrance and color. If you save fat from the bacon and other meat and keep it clean (boil it with a couple inches of water, then chill so the solids sink to the bottom) and keep it in the fridge or refrigerator, all you need to add is a can of lye to make soap. It's about $4.50 for a can. But it makes ten pounds of soap. Let's see, if we cut that into 5 ounce bars, that makes 32 bars. Not bad compared to the dollar or more for grocery-store soap. I saw bars of plain lye soap for sale at the hardware store for $3.99 each. It had a list of things you could do with it, including bathe, shampoo, clean clothes, etc. The last thing was wash out a sassy kid's mouth. Gave me a good laugh. Anyway, this is going to be lavender soap so I can give some for Christmas gifts. Two years ago I gave some raspberry soap to Maryann, and she's been hinting for more ever since.

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I am catching up my email while the tallow melts. Today is the day I make soap (no matter how slow the tallow  melts) for my Christmas baskets. I've already made the other stuff that goes in the baskets. Because it's only three weeks till Christmas, I've chosen a recipe that sets up quickly.

I'm spending a bit on Christmas and extra dog food, so I have to make my allowance stretch until next Friday. So I'm going for three no-spending and no driving days in the next seven days.

We saw a wonderful concert last night! Time for Three are a string trio that are so totally different! I was expecting Baroque, but we got everything else. And I have never seen or heard such fast fiddling! We get the concert tickets every year in exchange for my writing critiques for each concert to put in the local newspaper. We could never afford them any other way.

Monday is my day to apply for Social Security. I am so excited! I've been waiting to get disability for many years, because I really can't earn a living due to a long list of illnesses.

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