It's a New Year

Happy New Year! I hope my huge audience of 4 had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed time with family and friends.

I always feel very relieved when all of the hoopla is finally over, but I enjoy it just the same. We hosted Christmas (as we did last year) and had a larger group. It was so nice to be able to spend it with everyone and hope we can do it again.

I cooked my tail off and gauging from the comments, it was worth it. I tried all new dishes and only two I wouldn't repeat (I made way too many sides). We finally finished all of the leftovers this past weekend and with all of the venison we have had, we have saved some dough.

As you might imagine, I haven't been able to read much. To be honest, I was just starting Stephen King's new monster, "Under the Dome", when I picked up "War and Peace". I found it much easier to pick up Mr. King's book than Mr. Tolstoy's (I hope he would understand). Anyway, I finished King's novel and am now 100% engaged on my project.

The last time I wrote, I hadn't gotten very far in the book and was already feeling like I would rather have a root canal than go any further. Well, you would be proud to know, dearest reader's, that I sat down last night and managed my longest stretch of reading thus far! With my Wheaton Terrier asleep on my lap and toothpicks holding my eyes open I have reached page 235! (feigned excitement)

(Well, this is embarrassing. I could delete the entire last paragraph, but I won't. As I started to go back through my notes written in the margins, I realized that I
inadvertently skipped ahead quite a bit. Damn it all! I must have started reading last night where I shoved my bookmark the last time I read and the book was closed.)

Ok....deep breath. Not a big deal. I still should be proud of the number of pages I was able to get through last night.

I am really on page 134. How did I skip over a hundred pages without realizing it?? Oh, that's right. I think all of the dots are on the page, but I still haven't been able to connect many of them.

More to follow...