Week 43: Fun Lights!

It's snowing and cold here in Superior, CO..  my least favorite kind of weather. I'm heading out to Orlando on Wednesday to start my snowbird adventures for the season, but I've made a mental note that if I really want to beat the snow, I'm going to have to leave by mid-October.

However, knowing that I'll be gone for most of the winter, it's been a little easier to remind myself of all the beautiful things I do enjoy about wintery weather: the sparkly new snow, staying warm and cozy with snuggly blankets and warm drinks, and holiday lights!

This was a good week to work on goal #53 from my list of 60:

Hang pretty lights in basement and bedroom

A couple of years ago, I bought a pre-lit artificial Christmas tree which means I have an abundance of extra holiday lights.  I thought it would be fun to put those up in the rafters of my unfinished basement!

I also found these cool neon flamingo and palm tree lamps for 75% off at Michaels! Add a space heater and I can pretend I'm already in Florida!  (MB: Thank you for your help with the assembly!)

This has been a more challenging goal than you'd think because I had to get an electrician to add some additional outlets around the basement.  Then I had to get power strips and extension cords to let me hook up all the lamps and lights.  I really wanted to add a lot of light so that rather than being depressed by the dark days of winter, I could instead enjoy all the fun lights!

I have an old lava lamp and some other 'retro' party lamps that fit right in with the other 'vintage stuff' in my basement.  OK..  maybe it's really just 'old junk' but I like it and it is the perfect decor for the 60's theme party that I'm thinking of throwing for my 60th birthday.

I also bought an LED strip that comes with a remote that let's you change to any color. You can do things like make the lights blink or change colors for holidays or certain moods.  I have bulbs that are controlled by a remote in the same way. These LED "party lights" are incredibly cheap, but they've had their share of problems.  The remote doesn't work too well, and the first set I got was missing a very important adapter cable, so I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to get it plugged in. But today I finally got the missing adapter and now that I see how these lights work, I'm getting more!

As for my bedroom, I put a couple of beautiful tiffany lamps on my Wish List, so let's hope I get one from Santa!

What worked well

• Having more light cheers me up, especially in winter.
• Those LED lights that change colors are so fun and so inexpensive!
• Love having holiday lights up all year round.
• 75% off my cool flamingo and palm tree lights!
• MB helped me assemble the flamingo and palm tree since the instructions were not very clear.

What could be better

• I still have a lot more lights that I want to hang..  I'm hoping my kids, who are very creative and artsy decorators, will help me continue hanging more lights in my basement.
• I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to install the LED lights that were missing an important adapter.  Customer service was unresponsive.

I also have lots of big comfy blankets to snuggle with down in the basement so bring it on, Mother Nature! (Just as long as I can get out of here on Wednesday!)