You know how much I like those little decorating nuggets in the newspapers. This is from the Las Vegas paper:

' "Homeowners can easily give their homes a fresh look this holiday season without spending a lot of money. One simple way to update the look and feel of a room is to add an affordable, bold accent piece, such as a red lamp shade or purple throw pillow," said Joshua Thomas of Target.'



Yes, a gaudy new throw pillow will certainly make my season cheerier and take my mind of the bad economy. And the red glow through a red lamp shade will bring fond memories of Ho Ho houses.

I have a four-foot fiber optic Christmas tree that I paid $2.50 for at an auction and going to put some lights along the bridge over the Big Thompson River. I can turn them on from inside the house. Cars will be able to see them from the highway. It'll be spiffy.

It's particularly gloomy in Las Vegas - for the first time in recorded history the population decreased with the exodus of 10,000 people. I'm not sure how they know that, maybe going by driver licenses that weren't renewed.

You know how over the top everything is in Las Vegas, so of course their housing market has crashed the hardest, and the fraud is worse there. The local paper called it 'ground zero for housing fraud.' People are losing their homes and heading back to where they came from. Even health care jobs are being lost because all the elective surgery centers are closing for lack of clients.

State tax revenues are way down, and severe cuts are going to be made to the educational system, which is already 47th in the United States.

I'm thinking about that When I'm an Old Lady I Shall Wear Purple poem, the basis for that Red Hat Society. In my case I want to be an old lady wearing a red lampshade on my head chugging down eggnog without a care about the calories.