Happy 2007!

As Sam Gamgee famously said, well, I'm back. Sorry for the long hiatus, and happy new year to you and yours! December was a whirlwind of concerts, extra hours at work, parties, dinners with friends, extra time with the church choir, shopping, gift-preparing, baking, card-writing, and (finally!) travel. The holiday season really is a time of perpetual motion. It's a bit fun, a bit insane, and a more than a bit exhausting! Our trip to D.C. was WONDERFUL, if too short. I had looked forward to it for months, and it was over so quickly. The car-ride there was filled with so much excitement and anticipation; the ride back was long, and my cheeks were often salty. It was hard to come back to a dayjob I'm not particularly loving and a home that still doesn't always feel like home. But I'm slowly readjusting to being here. It is great to be back in our space, to sleep in our bed (I always miss my own bed when I'm traveling), and to see our new Illinois friends again and hear about their holiday adventures. And there is something refreshing about returning to the routine of work after a time away; it is hard to do it, but it also feels good to have somewhere to go and something to do after days of drifting from meal to meal and person to person. Not that all the eating and visiting isn't an awful lot of fun! ;-)

Our time in D.C. was so great. We spent some lovely time with two of my four parents; we had yummy Mom-cooked meals, saw a wonderful exhibit at the Sackler Gallery on very old Bibles and fragments of Biblical texts, went for a walk along the C & O canal on one particularly balmy December day, and just generally enjoyed time to talk and catch up. And we saw so many friends! I had a marvelous reunion with four of the five Lunch Bunch ladies, dear friends of mine going back to middle school days...we enjoyed lunch, of course, and then a fun trip to the National Zoo. The baby panda is getting big! We also had a chance to visit with DSGrapeson, and with Zauditu, my dear sis-in-law. No time for a Lord of the Rings movie marathon this trip, but we did have some great conversation and yummy desserts at a fun diner in Silver Spring. New Year's Eve took us to Baltimore to spend more time with Zauditu in her stomping ground. We enjoyed sushi with Z and our good friend LH, a fellow Tallahassee transplant. What a fun evening! And there were many other reunions as well throughout our week as well. It was a jam-packed trip, and husband and I only wish it could have been longer. Soooooooo good to see all of you, D.C. and Baltimore folks! We miss you all!

Now January is racing foward. 2007 is half a length ahead of me already! I still have SO many New Year's letters to mail. It seems like we just said goodbye to family and friends, packed the car, and came home; now the month is nearly half over! Insanity. I'm back to work at church, and my choir continues to be a (mostly) fun thing for me. Meanwhile, I'm working on finding a new dayjob since my current one is just not cutting it...not enough hours, no benefits, etc. I've got one application in for a church secretary position in town...keep your fingers crossed for me!

So I've missed some important birthdays in the month I took off from my blog. Happy Belated Birthday to LL, my sis in NYC, on Dec. 29, and to her husband DL on Jan. 1! Hope you both had fun, relaxing days! And January 3 was the birthday of Professor J. R. R. Tolkien, one of my favorite authors, so happy birthday to you, Sir. On January 7, my poppa would have been 92 years old. In some ways, it's hard to grasp that this is the 10th birthday of his that has passed since he died. And yet I have come a long way since my senior year of college, so I guess it's not so hard to believe. 10 years does not seem so long as it once did. I think the pace of life is accelerating.

I am still re-reading The Lord of the Rings! (I'm really taking my time and savoring it, plus my busy schedule has not left me lots of reading time...mostly just in bed at night, and I fall asleep too fast to get very far). I'm closing in on the end of Book III, the first book of The Two Towers. The Ents have been putting a big, wet damper in Saruman's plans in the form of the River Isen that they have restored to its natural course. Very cool! Go Treebeard and friends (and Merry and Pippin)!

New Year's hugs to all of you! I hope you enjoyed your holiday adventures. It's good to be back.