Hello, my name is Mitsy, and I am addicted to yard sales.

There are things in life that we do because we have to. Then, there are those things that we secretly love, even if we act like they are a nuisance. About every 6 months, my wife decides she will have a yard sale. When this topic comes up, I flashback to "yard sale people" in your driveway one hour before you are going to start. They hover like vultures to get the first picks. Then they haggle with you over a .50 Christmas ornament.

I remember growing up each Christmas, as a family, we would go select a real tree. Once we got it home, my dad and I would put the tree in the stand and get it level. At this point, my dad would ask my mom to be the judge on which direction the tree needed to be adjusted. For a average size tree this might be an easy process. However, most years we went for a "Griswold" size Christmas Tree. Like clockwork, 15 minutes into the leveling process, Dad would start to get frustrated as the tree was still not set. Mom would respond by saying; "that's it! Next year we are just getting an artificial tree.". To this day, my parents are still buying real Christmas trees.

The point of this is, even the things that we enjoy will test our patience and sanity from time to time. We need to learn to embrace the stress as part of the process.

So as a final tip, Christmas tree will never be level. They are grown on the side of mountains. After a few glasses of egg nog, no one will notice anyway!