Good lord, what a month!  What a year!  I could not possibly be happier to see the back side of both 2009 and December.  December was like the grand finale of a year that while full of adventure and happiness in places, was overall more negative than positive.

It’s not many months when I can say that, but December, the time of Christmas miracles and good will, was one of them.

Going into all the reasons why would just result in a lengthy column of complaining and bemoaning everything from bad luck to wrong choices to the stripping away of idealistic illusion I was clinging too like a desperate spider monkey.  My claws and teeth were dug in hard and I was determined to hang onto my rose colored glasses no matter what.

I don’t know how many of you have had this experience, but my recent life has reminded me of times when I had bills I had to deal with, but when the notices would come in the mail, I would quietly slip them into the trash without even opening them.  I didn’t want to know how bad the situation was, so I pretended it didn’t exist.

That works for a while and can buy some healing time until you are strong enough to work on problems, but for the most part, I’d made a lifestyle out of that kind of avoidance.  I have spent decades making excuses for people (including myself) which usually leads to nothing more than enabling them to continue destructive behavior with their ace litigator (me) in tow.

December was the time of illusions dropping and reality hitting and it was not a pretty sight.  I did not fare well with it, I am ashamed to admit.  Everything that hit from the seemingly endless days with no power to the blizzards to the broken DSL to the emotional struggles Eric and I were enduring to the stress of trying to provide Christmas pretty much wrecked me and I crumbled into a rough depression.

Fortunately, January brought me out of it.  As planned. we had a nice night of pinochle with friends, then came home and I worked for an hour, then went to bed.  I woke up to a fresh new day full of hope and promise. I could feel the energy of all those who had made important promises to themselves and my hope was renewed.  Since it was being built on a foundation of “no illusions,” I felt stronger than I had in months.  My hope was built on very real goals and strengths rather than ones I pretended to have.

That has continued through the first week of January with good days piling up one on top of another.  Today brought miracles, which was lovely, especially considering that we are in a Mercury Retrograde when things tend to go backwards and get complicated rather than moving forward into positive development.

First, Eric (finally) started his work/study program where he is paid $8 an hour to go to the American Legion building and study and work on his online classes.  He was supposed to start yesterday, but felt sick and had not slept well the night before, so he opted to start today instead and slept in.

We have 3 eggs!  The little chickens, Stella, Naomi and The Fat One, have at last produced!  Delena went out to feed them today and in the far corner of the shed on the hay we’d laid some time back were the three little brown ovals of complete delight.

The chickens have been an experience, that’s for sure, starting with 8 and ending up with 3 after 5 had encounters with the dogs over the months since June.  These were encounters that did not end particularly well for the chickens who were involved.

We’ve been through the netting falling and trapping poor Naomi out in the elements, botching up her leg a bit and traumatizing her greatly.  She healed in just a day or so and other than potential psychological damage, seems fine.  I phone Eric to tell him about the eggs and he positively cooed.

The next bit of happy joy came from Grandpa Mike.  Grandpa Mike is married to Granny Liz and they are of no relation to us, but Grandpa Mike and Granny Liz, they remain.  A year and a half ago, Grandpa Mike and Granny Liz did a reverse mortgage on their house and as a result, bought themselves two lovely new jeeps.  They then let us use one of their old jeeps, a Cherokee that I have come to dearly love.  It was promptly revealed to have some axle and yoke problems and has remained hobbled in my driveway ever since except for occasional local jaunts of only a mile or two at a time.

Now, after a year and a half of shuffling one car back and forth, Grandpa Mike and Greasemonkey Jerry are hard at work getting the Cherokee all fixed and if luck holds out, I will have a second functioning vehicle in the foreseeable future.  Huzzah!!

This is particularly good since Eric’s schedule after January 19th is fairly brutal and our main car would be gone pretty much all of the time.  God bless Grandpa Mike and Greasemonkey Jerry.  Their timing could not be more perfect and *!ba!*!bing!* I rank that up there on my list of miracles for the day.

It feels glorious to come blinking and squinting out into the sunlight of life again after such a dark traverse into the Valley of the Shadow.  Speaking of sunlight, I went to town for provisions on Sunday and it was a balmy 72 degrees in Placerville, California.  Our temps usually run about 10 degrees lower than that, but we are still practically sweltering compared to the rest of the country.  It gets down into the 30′s at night and then pops up to the high 50′s, low 60′s during the day.  I could enjoy this forever.  I do know the debilitating blizzards are still coming and each year, I find myself foolishly hoping (again with the delusions) that maybe it won’t be “that bad” this year.  It always is.

I love my house, but although I surrendered to the inconveniences of being so far away from the real world (it’s a solid 30 minutes to the nearest town) and the very real dangers and irritations of the massive amounts of snow we get (around 10-15 feet cumulative in a year), I do find that it gets more and more intolerable as the years go by.  Wealth?  Do I want it just for the stability and security it provides?  No, not just that.  I want it so that this becomes my “summer home” and I have another house tucked away somewhere in a place with moderate winters and amenities within a reasonable distance.  That is my ultimate goal.

No

More

Blizzards.

The book planning is going so extremely well.   It’s great to have found an idea that is completely in the comfort space of my writing.  I suck so tremendously at dialog that my fiction books, even though they are fantastic ideas, are tremendously bad.  My non-fiction books have been to such a tiny, targeted audience that there is little marketing value.  The newest idea, “Stories I Will Tell When I Am Old,” has really taken off and I am on my 6th page of chapter listings and topics.  Bathroom reading.  I knew I’d find my niche and there it is.  That begins on Monday when the kids go back to school again.

My diet and exercise went out the window as soon as indulgence and comfort eating took over in December.  That also picks up again on Monday.  I’ve already started modifying my eating this week to ease back into the Zone Diet eating and that is going quite well.  I ate a wonderfully tremendous amount of junk last month and it does feel good to get back into good eating again.

I can feel the year starting to fall into place for me and I like what I am seeing.  There are some serious challenges ahead, some life-altering, but I am confident that they can be broached and managed in positive ways that bring about the most beneficial results for everyone concerned.

I feel reborn after a time of being buried alive and presumed dead.  Life resumes and it is good.