Should old acquaintance be forgot...

Naw. Not a chance.

Mate did something HUGE last night and cleaned the garage--and now it's cleaner than anywhere else in the house, which is pretty damned cool. He had help--Big T mostly, with some help from Chicken, and I ran errands, taking donated stuff (like crap yarn to the retirement home and clothes to goodwill) to it's intended destination, and I finished up by going to buy 42 lb. of cat litter so Mate could change the boxes in the crap-weasel quarter of the garage and have some to spare, and that's when I picked up one of those cat-scratching things that are supposed to solve all your 'dammit, get-away-from-that' problems!

Uhm, mostly what it did was get my cats stoned.

"Chicken?"

"Yeah?"

"Come get your cat."

"What's he doing?"

"Making sweet lurv to this piece of paper on top of the table."

"So?"

"It's making me uncomfortable."

"Mom! Do you know what you write?"

"Hey--my vampires are having sex in a ROOM!"

The cats are all currently drooling on things they don't normally sleep on, but that seemed especially soft and comfy in the afterglow of last night!

And Squish has made an observation regarding the changing of the seasons. We were driving to pick her sister up from her friend's house, and we stopped at an intersection that we've been through about a thousand times before in this year.

"Mama?"

"Yeah?"

"What HAPPENED to this place?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something bad happened here! What happened?"

"Nothing bad happened here--what are you talking about?"

"What HAPPENED here?"

(Now, remember, I write about the supernatural all the time, so I'm starting to think maybe my kid is that chick from Medium, and wouldn't THAT suck because I've WATCHED that show, and those people do NOT have easy lives!

"Honey, what makes you think that something bad happened here?"

"Mama, all the trees are naked!"

And, sure enough, fall may have been late in arriving this year, but the latest series of storms have stripped the trees, and it's now officially winter. The corner, which is usually shaded and green, was now starkly surrounded by tree skeletons, and something, indeed, had 'happened'. Observant little Squish, ain't she? (She's also been irritating as hell lately... fortunately, she spent some time away from her brother yesterday, and maybe they can stop making us bugnuts for an hour.)

And it's the time for top ten lists this year--I've been surprised to find myself on a few. This one was an honor, these were a very flattering surprise and this review was so gorgeously written, I could only hope the story lives up to it. All in all, very very nice.

Now I know it's the New Year, and I'm supposed to come up with some intensely deep, long-winded thing to say about wrapping up the old year and saying hello to good things to come--but I can't. Too much of my life is behind the curtain right now, too much of it is in flux.

I can tell you this: I am content. If the year has taught me very little else, it is that sometimes bad crap is very random but the good shit? That has to be earned. My husband, my children, my writing--I have worked very hard to see that those relationships are solid, that those things in my life will pay off. I am happy with all of them, and I am proud of all of them, and I will not take for granted that they will continue to be okay through the new year--you don't slack off on the shit that's important, New Year or no. I chose the picture above because that story is so rife with hope for the future--but the future for the boys in the picture required hard work, and heartbreak, and it's an important reminder that I try to write what's real, even if I'm dealing with shapechanging bears and magic cottages. May you have a good year full of hard work and just rewards.

Happy New Year to all of you--we will be watching old movies until mom falls asleep over her knitting. May you all spend your New Year's Eve in the way that makes you happiest as well:-)