Catching Up!

This morning’s coffee—with mountain views! Which is what I want! I love it here, although this little high desert aerie is a little far from my brother’s and from town. Which means any errands take nearly two hours. But it is gorgeous. No question.

A few nights ago, there was a massive storm. I could hear hail pounding on the roof. And then, I swear, Thor, the god of thunder, was standing on the roof because the lightning flashes and thunder rolls came right on top of each other. With the snow. Stunning. I loved it!

So, it’s been busy, catching up on presents, wrapping, napping, trying to get exercise, adding protein powder to everything I can, finding out what the heck is going on with my furniture and move. It is all still in Jersey City, which actually is fine, but that raises the question of why they were telling me it was going on a half load to Utah? This way I can just move once, once I find my new pad.

Meanwhile, I am finally working on marketing Jesus Is Not Republican and placed two Amazon ads for it. One was “Why Ted Cruz Will Hate the book.”

I put something like: Because it’s about progressive Christians. They have a sense of humor and play well with others.

You’re supposed to start marketing your book as soon as you start writing it, but I just couldn’t do that and am playing the long tail marketing game.

As I watched one online marketing class, I looked outside my sliding glass windows to see two small deer delicately picking their way through the trees and brush. Exquisite.

I am listening to local radio and one hilarious story was came from the local search and rescue team. The goal: to tell people not to take the shortest route Google maps suggests because the road might be a seasonal one. Then the guy, with incredible and inspiring patience told the story of one person who took one of those roads and got stuck. The person (note how he just called her a person) then called her husband, who took the same road but from the opposite end to try to help her. So he got stuck, too. Seven plus hours later, they were dug out. The search and rescue guy didn’t laugh, was very sincere, told everyone to not just do what Google maps tell you to without doublechecking, and just inspired me to be less judgmental.

I, of course, will take NO road that is not clearly plowed!

Going cross country skiing shortly!

I am, as some of you know because I vented more to you, still wrestling with fear, doubt and anger. But a couple of nights ago, I finished redoing the lights on my seven-foot main tree yet again and admired the smaller tree my sister-in-law had waiting for me when I arrived. I reveled in the Christmas carols being played on Colorado Public Radio’s classical music station. For far too many years, Christmas was something I had to sneak in,

For the past few days I have felt that I was at a turning point. I could feel that my attitude and mindset were key. I could see that it could go in one of two different directions. And all of a sudden, as I stood there admiring my imperfectly decorated tree, and listened to the exquisite music and watched the sun set over the Sleeping Ute and looked at how I had worked on marketing my book and how I had unpacked some boxes that I had had sent here and labeled what was to keep, what belonged to the girls and what I could toss, I thought “I am living!”

And I thought, I have chosen to live! Part of this are stories a lot of you have so generously and inspiration ally shared with me and I think of you ALL the time!

Part is from a book by a doctor named Bernie Siegel wrote. So I am channeling all of this. Because for the most part, my life is where I want it to be!

However, I am asking God to please start making things easy for me. We’ll see what she does.

Oh and the dog? She belongs to the people who live across the road from my brother and sister-in-law. It seems she would prefer to live with my brother and sister-in-law rather than her actual owners. I met her when I stopped to drop something off on my way to town and this dog had somehow escaped with her leash on and gotten into Tom and Kelly's house and messed up all of Kelly's Christmas cards. I picked up the cards, took the leash off the dog so she wouldn't hang herself, put her outside and left. I couldn't help but notice as I left that she stayed. And no, I am not adopting this dog even though she does have beautiful blue eyes.