Here are a couple pictures of the plants we planted yesterday:
Along the far left of the house under our bedroom window. The Sky Pencil Holly Tress are planted on either side, and there are 3 Cat-Mint plants in the middle. I don’t think the Cat-Mint on the far left is going to make it. 
The two Magnolia trees we planted on opposite sides of the yards. That stump in the middle is the old magnolia tree we had removed. We are still trying to regrow all the grass that died under it’s shade. 
This is along the middle front of the house under our dining room window. Like the first pic, there are are Sky Pencil Hollies on either end and 3 Cat-Mint plants in the middle, all which seem to be doing well. And that’s no ghost in the window…it’s just me taking the pic 🙂
I can already hear the groans that are about to occur when I mention what we did today:
We started prepping for post-Halloween holiday decorating. (November is just one week away, folks!) I pulled out the bins with holiday curtains, linens, and pillows we will swap out for the current year-round ones, so we can get them all dry cleaned. Then we reconfigured the furniture to make room for the main tree. It was the first time we converted the Lovesac furniture we bought earlier in the year, and it was a piece of cake. Now, instead of a sofa and love seat, we have a sofa with lounges on either end, which allowed us to move the two small recliner arm chairs from in front of the living room window to the space where our loveseat used to be. I love how it looks and may not go back to the original configuration after the holidays. And we now have a clear space in front of the living room window for the main tree.
We also ordered a few supplemental holiday items:
Gift bows, 2 white fuzzy throws to match our holiday pillows and coffee table runner, gold magnetic tiebacks to use with the white holiday curtains, a holiday giraffe shower curtain for the giraffe bathroom upstairs, and another pre-lit 7″ pencil tree that we need for our slightly reconfigured holiday decorating floor plan. I want to have everything we need to hit the ground running when we start decorating the first week of November. (We don’t do Thanksgiving at home anymore, so there’s no reason to wait until after Turkey day to get started.)
I’m excited to have gotten the ball rolling. Now, to get this house cleaned top to bottom and corner to corner before Operation: Xmas Vomit begins.
Idle Eyes and a Dormy 
Boy. you guys are better than me. I enjoy the Christmas holiday but have never decorated before December 6 at least. I usually than keep it up till the second weekend in January. No way I could look at it for two months or longer, even though it is beautiful. I do a mostly all natural Christmas, with real elements from the woods, and candles, and bowls and such filled with my vintage balls, and my tree. A big part of why I don’t decorate early is my job, since we start the trim prep in September for the proprieties, and then the shop and windows, and I decorate 6 homes for clients. It gets to be burn out. But somehow I still manage to do my own house.
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Until a few years ago, we never started decorating until the day after Thanksgiving. When we started going the BFJs house for Turkey day every year, we started decorating the weekend before Thanksgiving so it was done when we got back from CT. This will be the first year ever that we’re starting so early (November 1st) which we’re doing because:
1. We do a lot more than we used to so it takes much longer.
2. I’m old and unhealthy so can’t work 2-3 days straight to get it all done like I used to.
3. My health has been so unreliable this year, I need to do it when I can in case I can’t do it later.
I love our house decorated fro Christmas and I’m good for the two months (November and December) especially given how much time it takes to decorate now, but we will start de-decorating (per usual) January 2nd. I’ll definitely be ready to have it down by then. (And everything we have is artificial, so no issues there.)
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Grooooooooooaaaan.
Oh well. What’s done is done, and who am I to judge other people’s kinks?
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Maybe judging other people’s kinks is your kink 🙂
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I love the name “Operation Christmas Vomit.” We used to go all out, or so I thought. I think it was nothing compared to what you do. We haven’t had a tree since we got these two cats in 2012. They’re now 10 and still would not, I’m sure, leave a tree and its ornaments alone. The world is their playground. Stinkers.
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Fortunately, we only have to deal with one dog that loves crawling under the tree to sleep.
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“Operation: Xmas Vomit” — hahahahaha, love it! I have long since given up doing any major decorating for any holiday.
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The day will come soon when we start to decrease, but we need it this year, if for no other reason than the distraction.
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Now that I’m soon to be employed again, I just might get into the Christmas spirt. A little bit, anyway.
I don’t have storage space for a full size fake tree, so I’m likely going to purchase a table top one with lights for the console table.
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There’s always a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Hardly takes up any Space at all.
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