The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The great Christmas blizzard may have taken longer to get here than the forecasters would have had us believe, but nonetheless, it got here. We probably got 10 inches over a 24 hour period beginning midmorning on Christmas day and there’s been a light snow in the air today.

Despite the weather, Andy and I made it to both family Christmas celebrations, all we left my parents’ early in order to get back to the Shack before things turned really nasty. Good food and good stories at both celebrations. We ended up getting showered with presents, leaving me grateful and a little overwhelmed. I am in possession of so many new lovely things that I’m not sure what to play with first. Right now I’m slouching around in new slippers, attempting to blog while knitting a hat with new yarn and read a new book.

I’m back at work. With the snow, business is pretty slow: people are hunkering down in their cabins instead of going out for a meal. But if the snow keeps coming, it should be a fairly successful winter season of tourism. While I’m likely to remain a rather uninspired waitress, I’m happy for the employment.

We’ve been dogsitting off and on over the last couple days. Really, Andy’s mom had the bulk of the job, but since we live fairly close to Miss Rosey’s family, the Shack has been the staging station of the dogsitting. Right now Rosey’s curled up on the couch with me attempting to sleep but with our brand new window feeder on the window behind us, the squirrels and chickadees are keeping her distracted from her dreams.  It’s lovely to have something sweet and furry around and this may have gotten us one step closer to pet ownership, although likely a cat due to our schedules and space constraints. After all, the houseplants are all still going strong.

This morning, I finally got around to drafting the article that’s due at the end of this week. It’s a classic case of having more information than will fit in 500 words. I’ll edit it a bit tomorrow to make sure all the necessary information is included before sending it off to my sources to look over before I submit it in earnest.

It’s hard to believe a new year, and indeed, a new decade is nearly upon us. While I’m not much for new year’s resolutions – with the exception of flossing my teeth which I resolve to do every new year because I fizzle out on the prior year’s resolution around March – the new year does strike me as a good time to draw up some goals for writing and employment in general. After all, it’s hard to get where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going.

My brother got me a couple NYC guidebooks for Christmas, so my mind’s also starting to think in more detail about April’s travels. I’m on the prowl for a good, moderately priced B&B in Seattle.