Tree Craziness

So yeah its March and I am just now posting this.... the last few months have been a huge ball of life changing craziness. Ill write more about that soon.

We have a prelit tree and last year some of the strands went out and I whipped out my trusty light bulb checker and found all the lights that were out and fixed them in less then 2 hours.

This year however I think our tree went on tree strike. 

ALL of the lights were out, all except the top piece that is.

So I took the light checker and after 2 hours and ZERO success I decided we needed a new tree.

Then as I sat there admiring the tree and how big and full it is I decided that maybe, just maybe I could remove the lights and and just string the tree myself.....

Well that was all well and good and I was super excited when I realized that the lights did come off.

So I got some scissors and went to it.

4 HOURS later, I was wondering what I got myself into.

5 HOURS later I was crying

and after almost 6 HOURS I was done. 

And a bit worse for the wear.

You can not see it very well in these picture but my hands were all kinds of tore up.

I looked like I got mauled by a cat.

It was so bad, and so painful.

It hurt for days afterwards.

The final product. 

ALL the lights off the tree.

YES!! Success.

That is until about a week later when the top portion went out.

Yeah you know the one that was still working went the rest were not.

I wish I could say I took those off too just to get it all done.

But after 6 hours I was done!!!

So there is the top of my tree, NOT lit, and looking like it has a tumor on one side.

I also saw a cool thing on pinterest about putting mirrors in your tree to get the light to reflex better.

So I did! 

And the middle is awesome, the bottom, not so much. 

I kept wondering why, until all the presents were gone from under the tree and I found a pile of mirrors. Apparently the bottom did not like the mirrors.

So here is to hoping that my tree likes me better next year.

Since my tree hated me, this became my favorite area this season.

This was what you saw right when you walked into the entry way of my house.

This is what I lovingly labeled, The Gold room.

And to top off the Gold goodness, I made my deer head at craft night one night.

The kids call him, "Moose!"

Tree with the top part out...... 

and then.....

Bam.....

One wrong step and even more of the tree went out. GRRR!!!

At least the season is now over and I can remove all the lights and next year will be better.

Do you like how the middle is so bright and shinny and the bottom is not?