I have been wanting it for awhile and I could never bring myself to spend the $30.  And then Friday, I just went for it.  I plan on using it as our fruit bowl year round, but the bright red color makes it extra perfect for this time of year–even as a centerpiece!

Saturday, while we were getting our photos taken, we were surrounded by these big, glorious pine cones:

We didn’t have an extra bag or box to take them home with us, but I just couldn’t forget about them.  I really loved the idea of filling my new red bowl with mounds of pine cones.  Chris suggested just buying pine cones.  “Yeah, but these ones are big!  And free!”  Not to mention, I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of doing things myself.  Another 24 hours goes by.

It’s Sunday and we have had a few things go wrong already.  Greta throwing up all over the living room–any tips on getting THAT smell out of shag carpet and an armchair?? Also we forgot to get ornament hooks on Saturday so we have to postpone decorating the tree.  Wah Wah.  To try to keep spirits up, bags in hand, we went for a little drive to pick pine cones.  I was so happy.  It took no time to gather enough cones to fill 2 grocery bags.  They were covered in sap, but we had read that you could bake them for 30 minutes at 200 degrees and it would de-sap them.  When we got home, I put the bags on the counter and I noticed tons of little black spiders crawling all over in the bags!

I panicked.  I couldn’t move.  Chris was preparing dinner and instructing me to get the bags outside.  Ahhh!  I had to touch those bags!   I grabbed them, opened the front door and threw them on the porch and slammed the door in record time.

This morning, I really wasn’t ready to face those spiders but I desperately wanted my pine cones.  I quickly dumped out the grocery bags on the front porch and sprayed them with spider killer.

An hour later, I wanted to go admire/day dream about my pine cones (am I pathetic or what?) and I noticed a few little dead spiders on the concrete and one pretty big dead spider:

The verdict is still out whether or not I can get enough courage to bake these to de-sap them and make them into a fabulous centerpiece.  I worry I will always think of spiders when I see them.  Buying pine cones is sounding pretty good right now.