It's the holiday season

I've got a long list of excuses for not putting up our Christmas tree before today, but nobody wants to hear them. (They are very good, though, and some of them are even valid.) Anyway. I finally came home from work tonight inspired to get that tree up. Plus, Hanukkah starts tomorrow and I need to find the menorah, which is in the box with all of the tree decorations.

I turned the television to the Christmas music channel and cranked up the air conditioning so that it would feel like a winter wonderland. I got the tree put together. Isn't that enough? I'm thinking I'll just leave it there, in the middle of the living room, with the branches all bunched together and see if Brad notices when he comes home. :-)

A side note: I got my mother Adobe Photoshop Elements for Christmas, but her computer didn't have enough memory for it, so she had to send it back. However, that got me thinking about our new computer and its lack of useful photo-editing software. (I can't even resize a photo, it totally bites.) Turns out the fine people at adobe.com offer a free 30-day trial that was easily downloaded onto our computer and appears to be working as intended. If we really like it, we can purchase it at the end of the trial without having to download anything else or install anything via the ever-terrifying CD drive. So far it seems like more than we really need. I did, however, manage to remove my foot from the photo above. (See original at right.) I may not have done the best job, but that's pretty nifty.