Happy New Year!

Not to jump the gun, but this evening begins the season of Advent which begins a new Church Year. ¶ The preparations have been completed for the most part. The greens have been strung outside and the wreath hung. I call them Advent wreaths and greens. Others may think they are ready for Christmas. That’s fine. I will not change their minds. I’m ready for Advent, however.

¶ The empty stable is on the living room mantel. The Advent candles are in place. I haven’t found the animals whose habitat is the stable. They will appear at some point in time. My feeling is they are at the bottom of the Christmas stuff box. ¶ The planting of the bulbs is complete thanks to my gardening friend. I look forward to seeing what they produce come spring. Firstly, we must endure winter. We will. We always do. It always seems like our longest season. ¶ The earth needs to rest. The winter season gives us an opportunity to rest as well. Throughout the pandemic it seems as if we had enough home-time, and rest-time. We could not go any place because most places were closed. Instead of wasting our time going to stores to look for what we thought we needed, we shopped on-line. ¶ Things seem a bit more normal this year. Yesterday was Black Friday following closely upon Thanksgiving. I was out and about yesterday and I was quite amazed that the traffic was pretty much like normal. I didn’t check out any of the parking lots or stores.

¶ My single errand was to MacPros. Having thoroughly smashed my iPad by dropping it on a very hard floor, I received a new one, courtesy of Apple Care+. It works just fine except for the alarm which sounds forth at 5 AM every morning. The purpose of the visit was to see if something could be done about the alarm. After some unintelligible explanation of why things are the way they are I was sent on my way assured that the 5 AM alarm was a thing of the past. Now the alarm goes off at 6 AM. I guess that’s an improvement.

¶ Following Sophia’s horticultural attempt last week. The plant has found a new home in a new pot which she will have some trouble knocking to the floor, I hope. The pot weighs in at something like ten pounds so any displacement will have to be intentional. ¶ The week has literally flown by. Having a holiday in the midst of the week seems to shake things up a bit. I had difficulty figuring out Friday was really Friday. I nearly forgot to go to my volunteer job at the Pavilion of Arts and Science. ¶ I have felt really well all week for which I am grateful. The exercise program has been a little sketchy mostly due to weather. There have been a few warm days and some cold ones made even more so by the South Dakota “breeze.” ¶ Thank you for reading, for thinking of me, for praying for me, for keeping in touch. All those things keep me on a steady path to healing, whatever healing may bring.