Direct inverse correlation between number of house guests and frequency of posts.

I think this is the first day I have worked and come home to only Tim, Tilly, and Grandpa. The day had intermittent pouring rain and sunshine meaning I put the dogs out to clean, then had to rush them out of the mud as rain came pouring down. Every time I came in, I left a new set of muddy footprints to mop up, and the owner of the business planed the seed in my head of cleaning the areas that would be darkest in a power outage first. I came home and was glad to curl up on my warm dry couch with hot food and take a long nap.

I woke up to a fuzzy warm puppy curled up next to me and my awesome husband riding circles around our house on our little red mo-ped.

Tim sounds like he and Tilly had a pretty good day. Tim got the brakes working and took it out for a successful test-ride. During the brief appearance of the sun, Tilly and Tim ran down the 150 incredibly slippery steps to the beach and ran the little one out of batteries. What a delight it is to come home to a warm, fuzzy, sleepy puppy and an excited and delighted hubby with a new and improved toy. Oh! And speaking of that husband of mine, his hand is looking so much better! After only one long night and day of torturing his finger straight, it is looking so much better and so improved. His new torture-splint isn't much fun, and the pain-dough wasn't such a delight to play with after all. I think in no time he will be feeling much better and having even better use of his hand. He's already able to ride the bike using left-hand controls, and work with his tools again. Horray for recovery and healing!

On a New Years note, Mom was reminding us of all the changes from last year at this time. A year ago, Tim and I wern't engaged yet and I was fretting away wondering when the day might come. We had given up on getting the Honeymoon house as someone else's offer had been accepted. I was filing in as the middle school Life Skills teacher for the first two weeks of the semester and planning my weaving unit for the Art class. I hadn't yet committed to a litter of puppies for Tilly even! What a year we have had! It is so wonderful to be here now, settled in to this good life that seems so normal and right.

Ps. A while ago, I wrote an entry about the perks of getting a puppy in fall. I'll add to that list that she sleeps when it's dark out so in winter she has trouble staying up till 7pm and is happy to go straight back to bed if I take her out at 7 am. I love my puppy to pieces, but it is nice to have a few quiet, calm hours in the evening without a little one to worry about. If only children had the same 14-hour straight plus naps sleep mechanism, new parents would be delighted, well rested, and minimally stressed.