You don't have much winter there, do you, SRS? It sounds lovely. The sun has been out here, but temps have still been chilly, though yesterday it did get up into the 40s.

Thanks to Morgan, we have a drainer full of clean dishes and swept and mopped living room and kitchen. He came over yesterday and for a while I let him play a computer game. At the time I had my arm out of the sling and on a pillow with ice packed around my elbow. It hurt a lot and I was fairly upset. Morgan said to me, "Mama, is there anything I can do?" I blubbered that I didn't know at which point he came over to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "What can I do for you that you cannot do?" I still really couldn't focus though I did tell him how sweet he was and how much I love him. At that point, he said he knew just what to do and proceeded to wash the dishes and then to sweep and mop! I did get it together enough to read him a couple of my favourite stories from the old Childcraft books: the Shoemaker and the Elves and Nanette Visits the Château. I told him he reminded me of the little pixies or brownies that came in the house and cleaned it up while folks were asleep. The Shoemaker story was the only one I could find, at the time, that reminded me of what he was doing. It was just so sweet and such a nice way to get ready for The New Year.

He was excited about the new year because he was going to be able to stay up the whole night. I called him at about 930p. He was loud and excited and asked me what in the world I was doing up so late that I usually was always in bed by then. I told him I was getting ready to go to bed and wanted to wish him a Happy New Year. We then had a discussion about it now being 2012 but not the beginning of third grade. He was a little confused because were always talking about next year when you're in third grade. I think he finally understood. It was funny. I haven't heard yet, this morning, if he lasted the night or not.

I have done a few things over the past few days, laundry, paying bills, etc. Roger took off work from Thursday through Monday so it's been nice to have him home. Today we hope to clean a bit and I, also, will be working on clearing my hanging files to make way for the new year receipts etc.

If my elbow is not a lot better by Tuesday, I'll be going to the doctor. What exercise I have done has mostly been stretching all my parts but the one.

Last night as we were in bed trying to go to sleep, the neighbours decided to set off some fireworks at midnight. We quickly found out Luna is afraid of loud booms! I got up to go to the bathroom and as I sat on the edge of the bed a furry head peaked out between my legs from under the bed. Poor thing, she was really frightened. I talked her into coming out from under it, she followed me to the bathroom, sat down and leaned against my legs and finally just lied down on the floor as I spoke to her and petted her. She followed me back to the bedroom but didn't go under the bed this time, just stayed in the bedroom for while. Up until now, we have never been able to get her to sleep in the bedroom. She's always gone back out to the living room to lie on the couch. She wouldn't even stay in the bedroom with a nice cushy dog bed.

On Saturday, I did start work on a marketing e-mail for my first e-book. Learning a bit more of what I can do in Microsoft Word with pictures and other fancy bits. I also have to decide whether to keep paying for my website or just dump it and keep a running blog. A website doesn't really seem to be that important or useful, but I think that's mostly because I don't utilize it as much as I could. It's a lot easier to enter things in a blog than to go into the host server, log in and then use their tools to add to the website. If I dump it it would save us $12 a month which isn't a lot but every little bit helps, right? If any of you have any thoughts I be interested to hear them. I'll be working more on the e-mail and try to get it out this week. I think I'll be having Morgan over after school at least one or two days per week now as he is no longer going to the late day classes. He's quite excited about getting out at the usual time.

I really am loving having Dragon Naturally Speaking! It has been a great tool especially at the moment.

So here we are in the new year. I hope that it is a prosperous one for us all in all ways and I give thanks that it is so.

luvyakat