There must be thousands of bloggers out there who post something every single day of their lives and never think it’s difficult.  I am NOT one of them.  I think it’s hard as heck, but as you know, I am COMMITTED to doing it.  What you might not know (but will be relieved to hear) is that my promise to show up every day extends only until the month of December runs out.  That’s pretty soon, right?  What?! I’m not even halfway there yet?  OMG, friends, just OMG!!!!  I can’t quite remember how or why this happened, but now that I’m in, well, my stubborn self just won’t quit now.  So I’ll still be writing something, but you are totally free to not read it.  Believe me, I will understand.

It’s not that I have no thoughts in my head.  It’s more like I have too many thoughts in my head but none of them really merit a full-blown essay on the mighty INTERNET.  So I will just go with whatever thoughts are in there today and hope for the best.  There’s no telling what I will do tomorrow.  Maybe more of the same, maybe not.

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Yesterday morning as I sat in the front room reading the paper, I kept feeling like something was going on outside.  It wasn’t a really discernible noise, but some kind of a disturbance of energy that felt like a noise.  I finally got up to look out the window to find that the yards of our entire cul-de-sac were totally, I mean totally, covered with black birds, maybe starlings?.  Their little beaks and little feet were busy among the leaves and that’s the noise/not a noise I felt.  I tried to take a picture but at the slightest movement toward the window, they all rose into the air as one.  I’m talking about a thousand birds rising together as if they possessed one brain.  A visual example of total connection between individuals, I think.

As promised, I made my Christmas goodies yesterday.  In past years I’ve done a variety of things, ranging from cookies to rum cake to peanut brittle to my famous butterscotch fudge that really wasn’t famous at all.  The last few years I’ve just gone with sugared walnuts; they’re easy to do and always appreciated by those who receive them.  This year I decided to change things up a bit by adding praline pecans to the mix, even though the price of nuts these days is quite astounding.  The walnuts turned out fine, the pecans not so much.  It killed me, but the whole batch (a gazillion dollars worth) went right down the disposal.  I’m trying again today, a last-chance effort.  I’m not trying for perfection; it’s just that a slight taste of burnt brown sugar is not my idea of a good time.  Maybe I’ll let you know how they turn out, maybe I won’t.

Rain has been scarce around here lately, but as I’m writing this it’s raining so pleasantly, real gentle wet rain.  Rejoice!

You know how when it’s the Christmas season every tragedy that’s reported on the news seems doubly sad because of the season?  Just yesterday I was thinking that “the one” hadn’t happened yet for this year, the big plane crash or the massive fire or an earthquake or a tsunami.  And now, today, it has happened. A deranged individual has walked into an elementary school in a small community in Connecticut and shot 18 children and 8 adults dead.  That’s all the information I have and all that I can bear at this moment.  It touches too many places in my soul–mother, teacher, caretaker of other peoples’ children, and citizen of the world in which it can happen.  Send love, send healing, send love.  Please.

Blessings.