Southern Living Yankee

Three little burros came to Auntie Ferree's one day. They begged, "Please let us out of this box, dear auntie! It's so hot and stuffy and we want to be free, like you!" "OK, amigos, but no funny stuff. You look like trouble makers to me," I said. "Watch this, Auntie Ferree, watch this! Get ready. . . get set . . ." "Aim . . ." "FIRE!" I didn't know such little pinatas could hold so much crap, oops, I mean scrap. WRITING UPDATE: Today I'm supposed to be working on chapter 20. Enough said. Thanks for checking in on me!

Tom left me this weekend. But he'll be back tomorrow. And then we get to catch up on Valentines Day (wink wink) and my birthday! Right now he and Aaron are visiting his parents in New York and doing their best to stimulate the economy and blast our credit card debt into the ozone layer. Meanwhile I've had a fabulous weekend! Saturday I cleaned off all the piles of papers and junk that were spilling off all available surfaces in the kitchen, dining room and living room. I have a desk in the living room that I haven't seen the top of for months! Now I can; and since I put a nice lamp on it, a potted plant and a copper container for pencils and all my little notebooks, it's beautiful. I should have taken a before and after picture. I'm a visual person and seeing mounds of clutter really weighs me down and tires me out. So to get all this junk out of my sight is wonderful! Last night Judi came over with sub sandwiches and her mom's homemade custard. We watched ...

Why did God have to put that in the Bible, and why did I have to be reminded of it so many times--like not only once a day, but many times a day, each day this week??? Obviously, I needed it. Every once in a while you get some God-things going on. Stuff happens that has His fingerprints all over it. Don't envy me. I can't go into details, but for lack of a better gauge, here's how I've slept this week: Tuesday night: one hour. Wednesday night, three or four hours. Thursday night, maybe two hours on the sofa, and an hour or two in bed before Tom got up at 4. Friday night: near normal. Last night, near normal, just lost sleep from 3a.m -4:30. The constant low-grade stress we've been under spiked into the red zone several times this week. And it had nothing to do with Aaron's school being evacuated for a bomb threat and a student found carrying a gun in on Thursday. But, deep down, I must admit a certain peace and relative rejoicing. Prayers are being answered. Th...

. . . OUR CHRISTMAS TREE IS DOWN AND PUT AWAY! Tom and Aaron stuffed it up the hole in my closet ceiling--picture the Grinch stuffing the Christmas tree up the fireplace chimney--same idea. But I'll bet you thought I wrote "Ahh, FINALLY" about how long it's been since I blogged, didn't you? Well, that, too. But I'm back. Question is, where do I begin? For a couple reasons, I won't recap our Christmas. How about I just give a quick update on "the book" and some other ideas? Here we go: WRITING UPDATE: It has finally occurred to me that I work at the library only 4 days a week. The days are different every other week, and that's kind of confusing, but all in all, each week it's only 4 days. So I took a pen to the big calendar in our kitchen, and blocked off one entire day each week from now through April with the command--"WRITE!' This past Tuesday I even obeyed the calendar and knocked off chapter 16. My next writing day is Thursd...

Santa Tom bought me a new computer for Christmas! Now I'm just waiting to get it all hooked up and get all my files transferred to it. I'll be so happy to be able to post pictures, get back to blogging regularly, make greeting cards, and, oh yes, WRITE! So don't give up on me yet. Keep checking back.

No change on my computer status. Still haven't updated my saved files. So I suppose I could lose it all, but I may as well just use it. Use it or lose it , or use it AND lose it , it's a gamble either way. That's my writing update. For family news, Brooke and Chris will be with us for Thanksgiving. It doesn't look like Lisa and Joe will be moving back to Ohio by the end of the year. And Miss Hiss, my elderly boarder is back for a visit and living up to her name. Top of my list of things I'm grateful for this year is simply the ability to be grateful. I hope I will always have that ability. I think it makes people and life much more enjoyable. And I come to that thought by comparing it to the extremes: what if I were insane? I'd rather be insane and grateful than just plain old insane. Or Alzheimers? I'd rather have that with a good dose of gratitude than without. Gratitude and thanksgiving release us from the stranglehold of self-centeredness and introversio...

. . . and I could give you a hundred excuses, but I'll just give you one: d e a t h . My computer doesn't have long for this life. All the little glitches this past month (frustrating my blogging attempts--yes, I did try!) were more serious than I realized. Tom made the diagnoses last night. He's a wizard at making cars and computers and paper machines run far longer than their life span so I believe him. It could crash at any moment. Will my book and other writing be saved in time? When will I be able to afford a new computer? What kind will I get? Will I finally get a writing space outside of the card table set up in the guest bedroom? Stay tuned! Thanks for checking in on me, and thanks for praying!