Starting the decorating

I went outside to put lights around the house this afternoon. I got The Professor to put down the papers he was swearing at grading and drag our big ole' wooden ladder outside. Then I had to remind him that he had to HOLD IT STILL every time I looked at it, because this ladder was probably built around the time the Titanic sank. And I'm beginning to thing that the humidity here in the south might do something to wooden ladders after almost 100 years. Anyway, after I had brought the lights, the little clippy things that hold the lights onto the gutters, The Professor and his ladder outside, we got underway. It went something like this:

1. I showed him where I wanted the ladder for the ceremonial Hanging Of The First Section Of Christmas Lights.
2. He glanced at it and told me it wouldn't work, because in case I hadn't noticed, there's a HUGE rose bush in the way.
3. I pouted and said "But that's where I want to start!"
4. He got the rose clippers and started hacking on my rose bush.
5. I got a perverse satisfaction every time my roses stabbed him with their lethal thorns.
6. He positioned the ladder.
7. I climbed up and attempted to hang the ceremonial First Section Of Christmas Lights.
8. I decided I didn't feel like hanging Christmas lights on the house this year.

Yes, my lovelies, I am the reason that The Professor hyperventilates if he does not have a case of beer in the house at all times. Anyway, I decided that I should put lights on something. So I put them on the tree in my front yard. Which has never been a particularly lovely tree, but it's the only one that came with the house. I don't know what it is, other than perpetually half dead. But it has some branches - kind of - that will hold lights. And I convinced myself that in the dark, it would still look pretty. So I made The Professor drag the ladder over to the tree in the front yard while I hung lights. This is what a lot of love and a little beer gets me: