Ups and Downs

I had made plans for today.  I needed to finish some crafting and sewing for Christmas.  Instead we had a visitor and later I ended up shopping.

Wade was our visitor.  Mike told me Wade's schedule had unexpectedly freed up and he was dropping by.  Wade is our concrete guy and he poured the basement which is where we have a leak.

The builder's crew were out a few weeks ago and we thought they had found the cause of the leak and fixed it but we were wrong.  So Wade came out to assess the situation.  He decided we needed to call him the next time it rains and he will try to catch the leak 'in the act' as it were.  This actually means that he will go into the basement and knock a hole in the wall to trace the leak back to its source.  Since rain is forecast for the end of this week, it looks like I will have a hole in the basement wall over Christmas.  No problem.  This is where I was planning to serve a meal to 15 people on Christmas Day.  

Then my brother emailed.  He found the perfect solution to my light decorating problem with Mike.  The problem is that I like to have lights on the house and yard and Mike doesn't like putting them up. My brother said we should get 'Star Power' which involves a plug in light that projects green and red laser stars onto the house.  No more climbing ladders to put strings of lights on the house. My brother also mentioned they had run out where he was at and I should run to the store.  So Mike and I did.  

I was pretty sure I had seen these lights at Walmart so we went there.  While in the Christmas department I realized I had actually seen them at Rural King.  However, not to make the trip a total waste of time we bought dog food.  Then we went to Rural King.  Surprise.  They were out.  But not to make the trip a total waste I bought chicken treats.  (I think the chickens are getting on each other's nerves again and giving them treats distracts them from picking on each other.)  So we went home and I got on the Internet.  

I stumbled on a Target in St. Louis that supposedly had some in stock.  Laura, who lives in St. Louis,  was getting out of school by this time so I sent her a text to go check it out.  She did not pick up on the urgency of the situation and by the time she got to the store they were out, if they ever really had some in the first place.  So I told Mike it was time to put out the rest of our strings of Christmas lights.  Which we did.  One out of the three strings of candy cane lights didn't work.  Wouldn't you know.